How My Personal World Imploded
by Foxtails0
Summary: Hi, all! Katy Pierce, a young demigod, is thrown into the turmoil of half-blood life. I suck at writing summaries, so please R&R! Rated T for minor language and violence.
1. The End Begins dun dun dunnn

**A/N: This is my first fanfic, which makes me nervous as heck. Hope you enjoy :)**

The end of the world started in… math class.

My name's Katy Pierce. I live with my step-mom, Lucy, and step-sister, Adrianna. I'm fourteen, and my dad left when I was two. Lucy's nice and upbeat and all, but she's always shied away from me a little, flinched away from me a bit more than she has from Adrianna.

Enough about me. Ready for the end of the world to begin? I sure am! Hoooo-rah!

So, anyhow, I was sitting in math. The girl next to me, Gina, got called down to the office and Jack got up to go… wherever Jacks go. Just for the record, it was really awkward there with just me and quiet, smart, Matt at our table. I felt like I should say something since our group is so talkative all the time (tehe.)

"So, um, do you know where Jack went?" I said. I checked the clock. 12:38. Jack had been gone nearly ten minutes, which made me nervous. I didn't know why.

"No," Matt mumbled, not looking up from whatever he was writing on his homework. It occurred to me that his homework was the only worksheet out in our entire group. Oops.

Finally Gina came back and spared me from death by silence. Her gold bangles jingled as she sat down. Jack arrived two minutes later, blue eyes flashing mischievously, and Mrs. Brandt started the lesson.

"Dude, you were gone nearly ten minutes!" I hissed to Jack, trying to pretend I hadn't been worried out of my pants or fantasizing him having fallen down the stairs and me having to save his life or something.

He half-grinned. "I know."

"Where were you?"

"Nurse's office." He smirked. "Did she check the homework?"

"Yeah," Matt chimed in, still writing who-knows-what in red ink on his homework.

Jack's smirk widened into a half-grin and the light caught off his blondish-brownish hair, making it more blond than brown. "My plan worked perfectly."

Well, that had been at the back of my mind, but it was way less dramatic than him having fallen down the stairs or Gina's being called down to the office being because she killed Jack.

"Genius," Gina breathed, and I raised my eyebrows, secretly agreeing with Gina, though I could have easily pulled off a stunt like that. Going down to the nurse's office to skip homework check? It was smart, and gutsy.

I drifted off into dreamland, as usual, of course, paying attention to every detail of what was going on in the room. I noticed that Jack looked nervous. He kept shifting around in his seat, and the minute the bell rang he shot off like a rocket.

"Gina, do we have study now?" I asked, hefting up the textbooks to go put them away.

Gina nodded. "Where do the calculators go?" I was about to point her in the right direction, when she shut her eyes and dropped the calculators. They landed with a clatter of applause.

"Um… sorry, Katy. I… I have to go." Shaking her head, hard, so her long blond hair whipped all over the place, she speed-walked out of the room.

Naturally, as the curious menace I am, I glanced quickly at Matt. He shrugged, but smiled a little as if he caught on to my idea. Without another word, I dashed out after Gina.

**A/N: woo, hope you liked it. Not very exciting yet but it'll increase at… some… point. **


	2. Spontaneous Owl Attacks

**A/N: Updates, yay! I just have to warn you before I forget (though this won't apply for this chapter, I think) that Jack's parentage might get a little complicated. I'm totally winging it with him. **

**Also, this story takes place 20 or so years after TLO and as if TLH hasn't started yet. Canon characters won't appear but they will be mentioned from time to time, and I'm planning on putting in a non-canon character who was a young half-blood at the time and knew Percy and Annabeth and the whole bit. And I just realized that Katy eavesdropped on Gina and Jack like Percy eavesdropped on Grover and Chiron, and I swear that's a complete coincidence and it occurred to me as I peeked in on my friend's science class today while waiting for **_**my **_**teacher to unlock the stupid door and/or stop lecturing the class before me so my class could get in and sit down.**

**Finally, some random irony: The actor who played Grover in The Lightning Thief movie's last name is Jackson.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not and probably will never own PJO or any similar book series. Rick Riordan gets all the fun *sigh***

Gina had slipped into the empty science room across the hall. Unfortunately, she had also shut the door and locked it with a _click. _

Fortunately, I knew a separate entrance. I snuck around the corner and found the door open a crack. I leaned in and put my ear to the crevice. The late bell rang. I didn't care. I had been late for study often enough.

"Are you _certain, _Jack?" Gina's voice. I perked up a bit.

"Yeah."

"Yeah, just like you were _certain _about Matt?" Wish you'd come with me now, don't you, Matt?

"Shut up, Gina. It was your idea."

"Was not!"

They sounded like squabbling three-year-olds. If they hadn't mentioned Matt in the weird way they had, or if I actually had something to do in study, I would have left. They were boring me to death. That was it! Gina and Jack had acted oddly and run into an abandoned classroom to lure me to my death. I should have known! Jerks.

I rolled my eyes and stifled a giggle at my own hilarity.

"Jack, listen to me," Gina continued, her voice silky and persuasive. "We can't just _tell _her. We'd be off to the loony bin and you'd never see anyone for the rest of your awkwardly padded-room-filled life. The only bonus'll be that you'll live past sixteen."

"Your turn to listen to me, now." Jack sounded impatient, as if he and Gina had gone over this before. "First of all, not all half-bloods die at sixteen. Plenty of them live to grow up and have kids of their own. Secondly, don't try that persuading crap on me. Thirdly, we're both late to class now and it's _your fault. _If you'd just agreed with me we could grab Katy and run and explain the whole thing when we got to study." At the sound of my name, I scooted closer and… the door creaked.

Oops.

"Great job, Jack. You _suck. _You just _suck. _This is all your fault." Gina spotted me and threw her hands up in the air, exasperated.

Jack looked defeated. "Fine. My fault. Just bring her down to the cafeteria. We'll say you had locker trouble or something."

They were nutters! Completely! Insane!

We'd made our way down to our study (in the cafeteria) and told our teacher we'd been helping Gina with her locker (and, Gina added innocently, since Jack was too stupid to do anything right, they'd had to ask me for my flawless locker-opening skills.) She just nodded and didn't look up from her book.

Gina dragged me to a back corner table where we could be alone. She and Jack sat across from me and unleashed the whole story.

**(Quick A/N: I'm going to skip most of the basics of being a demigod since you guys know it already.)**

"A half-blood, is, like… half-god, half-mortal," Jack said helpfully.

"Yeah, like us. I'm a daughter of Demeter, goddess of the harvest," Gina said cheerily.

"And Wheaties," Jack muttered. Gina shot him a look.

"And with that precious comment, I will launch into the next topic. Jack here is a bit weirder and more complicated than just cereal-"

"I said I was sorry!" he protested.

"Did not," Gina grumbled.

I wondered if the squabbling was a running theme with the two of them. I hoped not.

"_Anyway, _as I was _saying, _before I was so _rudely _interrupted, I'm a daughter of Demeter. You're a daughter of… um.…" She gave me a blank look.

"You know, this is an outrage. A breaking of promises. Katy, you're fourteen. Gina and I are fourteen. We're claimed. You should be claimed already." Jack slammed his fist on the table, frustrated.

"Oh, poor Jacky, gods broke daddy's-"

"Gina, shut UP!"

**(A/N: I **_**did **_**warn you about Jack. I'll get to him later, since he requires a long mathematical theoretical explanation.)**

"But I digress… Jack and I were sent here since we knew there was a half-blood here, and since Jack and I have an empathy link, it was only natural we'd be chosen. Running out of satyrs, you know? Anywho, after several months of observance and more than several weeks of planning how to explain this all to _Matt, _Jacky decided to change his mind. 'No, no, Gina, I swear! It's Katy! I just know it!'" She stared pointedly at Jack. "We need to get you to camp. Sooner you get to camp, sooner you get claimed."

I was glad I lived in New York. The bus ride, Gina said, took way shorter than it had from her home in southern Vermont, or her half-sister's home out in the country. She said the word "country," with such distaste that I guessed she'd been living in the city for awhile.

When we finally arrived, Gina and Jack each grabbed one of my wrists and dragged me (I was beginning to think dragging was a running theme, too, and yet again I hoped not) over a hill, past some big pine tree, and down into a bustling valley-thingy with twenty or so cabins, all decorated differently. How odd. We passed a few arena rings and found a black-haired woman on the sidelines, taking notes on a clipboard.

The woman looked like she was in her late twenties or early thirties. She looked up and saw us, and dropped her pen in surprise.

"Holy crap!" she yelped. "Jack Chase! Gods, I haven't seen you in six months, at least!"

Jack opened his mouth to snap a reply, but a giant gray owl came down and attacked his head.

"Gods, Bunny," Gina snarled as she swatted the owl away from poor Jack, who looked as if he'd just been attacked by a personal tornado. "How many times do we have to tell you? Names have power. Duh."

The woman, Bunny (I learned later that this is actually her real name), grinned. "What do I care about names? HADES. DIONYSUS. ZEUS. ATHENA. POSEIDON. APOLLO. ARTEMIS. ET CETERA."

"The woman's an idiot," Jack muttered.

"Zombies in five… four… three… two…" Gina sighed, looking bored.

"Shut up. Hades would never kill me. I mean, sure, if I'd hitched a ride on Blackjack with the Jackson kid I probably could've sacrificed myself for his daughter, but really, the girl's own intelligence and pride were her downfall, and I was only ten at the time. She's happy in Elysium, and if she'd wanted to live she would've taken Daedalus's soul and such, so." She folded her arms crossly.

Gina ignored her. "So, anyway, Katy, now you've met Miss Bunny. She was twelve at the time of the second Titan War that Jack and I explained earlier. She knew Percy and Annabeth and Nico and all those people, and she had the "inside story," as she calls it. So, she occasionally spouts speeches about "respect" for our "elders" and past heroes and such. It's kind of ironic, seeing as she refers to O Great Lord Percy Jackson as 'the Jackson kid,' and swears up and down that Percy was the only one who the war could've been completed _without._"

"No one knows why she's really still here," Jack said sulkily.

"Back up here," I snapped.

Jack and Gina and even Bunny looked startled, seeing as how I'd only mumbled hi to the occasional camper who welcomed "the long awaited Jack Chase and Gina Daniels, and oh, that other half-blood with them" back to camp, and frequent questions about Jack's god parent, which were ignored.

"What's going on? Who's my god parent? Why is Jack getting hunted by _owls_, and why is Gina's mother suddenly the goddess of wheat cereal?" I asked constant questions in one breath. I scowled, but I felt out of place because I knew virtually nothing about who I was anymore.

It was Bunny who recovered fast enough to answer my questions with a mysterious smile (I know, that sounds really cliché.) "Don't worry, Katy Pierce, all will be explained as soon as we get you to Captain Pony and his sidekick, Wine Boy."

I knew she was being ominous just to spite me.

**A/N: That chapter was way longer than I expected. I hope you liked it! :) I know, I'm totally taking the original canon story and twisting it in my malevolent hands. Issues to address:**

**Bunny. Bunny was put in as a character because I haven't analyzed Chiron or Dionysus well enough to feel comfortable writing them in yet, though I'm going to have to stop procrastinating by the time chapter 3 rolls around…. There is also an additional reason, but that'll be revealed later.**

**JACK :D Jack is the possibly illegitimate (I'm going to be vague on this) child of Annabeth and Percy, and he took his mom's last name for obvious reasons. I know he doesn't look anything like his parents and his name could've been edited to fit the Jackson surname, but his name and appearance was decided and caught on fast way back in his developing stage (aka: yesterday) when he was a son of Poseidon and named Jack Silver. Technically he IS a half-blood, because if he gets half of his genetic makeup from Annabeth and half from Percy, ¼ (Annabeth's Athena part) plus ¼ (Percy's Poseidon part) makes him an Athena-Poseidon crossbreed. Don't worry, I'll tone down his epicness a little bit, he won't get incredible intelligence and control over water, not to mention he's got owls treating him like a mouse everywhere he goes…. Sorry that A/N was so long, and I hope you enjoyed… CHAPTER TWO!**


	3. Captain Pony and Wine Boy

"Trust me, Katy, everyone goes through this sort of thing. I've never seen anyone take it so calmly, though," Gina mused as we walked to the Big House thingy.

"Yeah, well, I'm a dreamer." It was true. I'd always fantasized that my dad was a fairy-tale prince or something, and my mom some kind of queen. So how was this all that different from my childish daydreams?

"You're like Jack. He had no problem thinking of his dear old grandmommy as a goddess. Then again, he was six." She chuckled, and her eyes slowly went blank. I decided not to interrupt her walk down memory lane.

While we approached the house which slightly reminded me of some twisted prairie house, with a romantically old-fashioned wraparound porch, Gina motioned for me to go inside.

It was only when I was inside that my life smacked me in the face.

This is real. I'm a demigod. My mother is a goddess.

Well, if you saw a weird horse-man crossbreed, what would you have thought? "Captain Pony," Bunny had said. Oh.

"Oh, yeah, she's the new one, alright," a brunette girl remarked, smiling. She had silky dark brown hair, styled in that way that makes it _look _long, but upon closer examination you could see it was actually only just past her shoulders. She was dazzling, with thick lashes framing soft gold-flecked green eyes. I felt Gina tense up next to me, which made me wonder what atrocities this pretty girl could have committed.

"My name's Rose," she continued. "Daughter of…"

"Demeter?" I guessed. (Well, "Rose," you know?) Gina snorted next to me, recovering from her initial reaction and folding her arms.

"No. Aphrodite, actually." Oh, that figured. "Anyhow, Chiron, am I done here?"

Captain Pony – Horse Guy – Carnival Ride – whatever nodded and turned to me while Rose walked out of the building.

"Katy Pierce, is it? Our new arrival. I'm Chiron. I'm sorry I couldn't be there to meet you at your old school, but I trust Jack and Gina were helpful enough?"

"Jack copied my homework most days," Gina interrupted, with an eye roll. "I deserve to at least be listed first. 'Gina and Jack' sounds better anyway."

"Uh, yeah, they were… awesome," I said, shifting uncomfortably. "Sir, do you know if there's any way I could… contact my step-mom?" I felt guilty for not giving her a call earlier.

"I'll hook you up later," Gina whispered in my ear, before Chiron could answer. "Promise. Okay?" I faintly recalled her telling me, a few weeks ago, that cell phones weren't allowed at her summer camp. She then promptly showed me her lime green touch-screen Samsung in the middle of math class. I put two and two together.

Chiron frowned at her but let it slide. "Well, my dear," he began. "I suppose you know-"

All of a sudden, Bunny and a pudgy man emerged from behind us.

"And this is Mr. D.," Chiron muttered.

"Finally. Nina Spaniels, is it? Where's that fish boy we sent you off with?" the pudgy man (Mr. D., I assumed?) said. He smelled like grapes and wine.

"_Gina Daniels,_" Gina corrected. Her leaf-green eyes had turned splintered and icy. "And he doesn't go by 'that fish boy.' And he's _fine _and _here _and _alive, _thank you very much, not that you actually care."

Bunny and Chiron exchanged a startled glance. "Katy," Chiron – who would always be Pony Man in the back of my mind – began. "Mr. D. is our camp director. He's also-"

"Names, names," Bunny murmured, clucking her tongue. She looked at me with a twinkle in her eye, and I knew she was remembering our earlier exchange.

Eager to show I wasn't slow-minded, I said, "Nah, I get it. He's the… the… the wine dude."

Dionysus stared at me. "Holy Zeus, I haven't been called that in… in…"

"Twenty-two years, Mr. D.," Bunny said helpfully. She cringed. "Gods. Hades's boy. Remember him? Wonder if you two are related, Katy." Her eyes narrowed.

"My mom's the goddess, Miss Bunny. My dad left me when I was two. I've lived with my step-mother since then."

Bunny's face fell. "Anyway…," she said absently. "I suppose you can show her around camp, Gina? And, oh yeah," she continued nonchalantly, with a knowing glare directed at Gina, "Katy, if you have a cell phone, I suggest disposing of it. Monsters like to kill demigods, and phones are like a GPS pinpoint on a map in their heads. Have a nice day." She strolled briskly past me and out of the room.

"Shhh, you heard Bunny. If some rat hears us they'll tell on me, I swear," Gina whispered as we hiked through the woods. She went on to mutter darkly about jerks and fish boys.

"I can _hear _you, Gina!" Jack protested. "I can deal with any jerk I want to deal with, I don't need your _plants_ to protect me." Gina blushed. "For Zeus's sake," he continued, "I'm lucky I'm not treated like a _science experiment._"

"Wha-" I had only formed the W on my lips when Gina interrupted.

"Jack is the first cross-over half-blood in history. His parents are both human mortals, half-bloods themselves, though. Apparently the monsters don't care who your parents are, if you've got half god blood in you you're doomed, not to mention his dad killed the Minotaur a time or two. I'd do the math for you, but I'm really too lazy." She covered her mouth with her hand in a mock yawn. "Which explains the owls." No, not really, Gina. I'm still lost on the owl thing.

Jack seemed to notice my puzzled expression and elaborated, "My grandma – Athena, on my mom's side – never really liked my dad. So, yeah, she's mad at me, because I exist. Because I was born." He flinched, and I assumed he felt more strongly about it than he let on.

"Gods are like that," Gina said bitterly. "Spiteful. Curses and the like are common."

We came to a stop in a small clearing in the woods. Gina took out the same Samsung she'd shown me months ago.

I dialed my home number. Please, please, please, pick up, Adrianna. Please, pick up, Lucy. Please, please, please. Please.

"Hi, this is Lucy Powers-Pierce, please, leave a message after the beep and I'll get back to you!" I didn't even wait for the beep. I let the phone drop on the soft grass.

Gina said nothing, just bent down and picked it up. She moved to behind Jack, looking sorry for me, and Jack just looked awkward.

"So, Gina," I said briskly, trying desperately to change the subject. "Why don't you like" – here I noticed Gina making gestures that, looking back on it, probably meant _Shut your mouth, Katy! _From her place behind Jack – "Why don't you like that Aphrodite girl we ran into? Rose something?"

Jack looked confused, and Gina's gestures turned from pleading to what can only be described as strangling.

"Jack's only been in love with Rose for_ev_er," Gina swooned. "It's really quite romantic. Rose doesn't even notice. Typical daughter of Aphrodite – the only one whose feelings she cares about is… herself."

Then we heard a rustling in the trees.

I remembered what Bunny had said about demigods and monsters and cell phones, while Gina's mouth opened in a scream.

**A/N: I know, I know, cliffhanger. Luckily for you, I'm writing chapter 4 now and won't publish chapter 3 until chapter 4 is ready for reading purposes. Happy writing and enjoy! R&R!**


	4. So, You Were Saying, Gina?

**A/N: All Greek translations are using an online translator and spelled phonetically according to said translator and therefore may not be 100% accurate. If you ever run into Zeus, I do not recommend quoting my Greek or Latin, and I am not responsible for any injuries because you did so.**

And what came out were… doves. Bunches and bunches of… doves.

"They'll poop in my hair!" Gina shrieked, running in circles. Jack looked dazed, so Gina grabbed his hand and took off. The doves stayed, circling the clearing.

They were clearly Demonic Doves. I tore through the woods after Gina and Jack, screaming my head off and hearing Gina's screams from up ahead.

"_Doves!_" she was hollering, no doubt having come across other campers. "Hundreds and hundreds of _doves_ came out and _chased _us!"

"Oh, for Zeus's sake," I heard a musical voice say, still musical even in annoyance.

Rose was storming towards me, her brow furrowed in determination. "_Peristéria_!" she commanded, holding a hand out as if to stop the little menaces with only willpower. "_Eirí__̱__ni,_" she continued, calmer now. _Doves. Peace. _My understanding of the Greek made me dizzy, the realization that I would not wake up from this dream in my own bed at home setting in even deeper.

To get back to the point, the doves didn't stop, only slowed while I stopped for breath near Rose. Then they came and all _landed _on me; on my arms, on my feet, on my head, and messing up my already-mussed black hair.

"Would someone please get these birds off of me?" I wailed desperately.

Rose said something else in Greek, but my ears were too full of white feathers to hear. Jack smiled empathetically while he and Gina worked to get the white fluff out.

"That's a claiming if I've ever seen one," he said, laughing. Gina giggled too.

"I don't get it." I stared at him blankly.

"Doves," Rose interjected flatly. "Symbol of my mom, Aphrodite."

"Looks like you two are half-sisters," said Gina, who smirked, as if to say _Good luck, Katy. _

I raised my eyebrows. "Well, then, now that I'm determined, what was that you were saying about daughters of Aphrodite back there, Gina?"

Rose led me to her cabin, shooing away Gina and Jack. I was kind of miffed, seeing as how my mom had sent three dozen birds to claim me instead of just showing up herself. Really, no, it's okay. Just abandon me for fourteen years and don't even bother to say hello. No, it's okay, no need to apologize, Mommy!

Cabin #10 was… okay. It was just so… loving. It looked like one big valentine. As soon as I entered it, I knew I didn't belong. There was a girl with long silvery-blond hair brushing her hair and counting strokes quietly. A boy with milk chocolate colored hair was arguing with another girl who looked like his sister (though I figured every other girl was his sister, too.) Another girl was rearranging roses and another small flower I didn't recognize in a clear glass vase. You get the point. I had never seen more beautiful people in one place at once in my whole life. It was the most intimidating set-up I had ever been present at.

"Guys," Rose said, clearing her throat loudly. "This is Katy Pierce."

They all turned to look at me. For one awful second, they just blinked. Awkward.

Finally the redheaded girl by the vase spoke up. "Hi, Katy. Welcome to Cabin Ten. I'm Myrtle." She smiled a pretty, one-dimple smile. She had a more warm, youthful sort of beauty to her, more like a woodland fairy than a china doll. "Myrtle like the flower," she went on. "It's a symbol of our mother. Demeter, too, but, you know." She gave a quick shrug.

I was starting to like Myrtle.

The arguing brunettes waved. The boy spoke up, "Welcome, Katy. I'm Anthony and this is my sister, Aiko." He grinned, his bangs falling in front of his eyes. He looked like a skater girl's dream. Aiko elbowed him.

Rose sighed and rolled her eyes. "And this is-"

"I'm fully capable of my own introduction, Rose. My name is Maia. She was Hermes's mom, but my dad was a mythology nerd," the hair-brushing blonde spoke quickly and sharply, pausing her brushing briefly to shake my hand. "I'll be head counselor while Rose is gone."

I was introduced to a half dozen other girls and maybe half as many boys. Rose showed me to my bunk. It was surprisingly NON-FLOWERY; just plain and clean and crisp. I sat down and sank into the mattress, happy beyond belief to sit down. I'd been on my feet since math class. The day had been so long….

I was about to drift asleep when Myrtle shone a flashlight in my eyes. "Sorry to wake you, Katy, but it's dinnertime, and I know after _my _first day, dinner was a gift straight from heaven."

I sat up and yawned. "I can't sit with Jack or Gina, can I, Myrtle?"

She shook her head, curls bouncing. "Sorry."

I felt my face fall.

**A/N: I know, not a very good ending, but a lot went on in that chapter. Yay, we claimed Katy! I'll update soon; I have some ideas for chapter five. Hope you enjoyed chapter 4 :)**


	5. Witches and Clones, Lucky Me

**A/N: I'd just like to send a quick shout-out to my guy friend/acquaintance Cam, who will never see this. I told you Cameron could be a girl's name! It's just… spelled… differently. (Readers, you'll get this in a second.)**

The dining pavilion was littered with tables. Myrtle expertly wove her way towards what she called table ten. I noticed Jack sitting with a few other kids, and grinned. Gina waved cheerily from a table full of kids with her elfish looks and nature-y eyes.

Dinner had already been served. I followed Myrtle's example by bringing my best slice of steak to the fire and dropping it in with no hesitation, no matter how much _I wanted that steak._

I had only been sitting between Aiko and Anthony for a moment (don't think it escaped my notice that they were trying to kill each other behind my back) when I jumped up quickly and said, "Excuse me, but I have to go… somewhere else."

I plopped down next to Jack at his table. "Hi, everyone! Jack, I can sit here, right?"

He nodded. "Sure. Guys, this is Katy Pierce, daughter of Aphrodite. Katy, please meet the official Zeus table." A tingle went down my spine when he called me "daughter of Aphrodite," – this was going to take some getting used to.

I'm sure my face was a question mark. A bronze-haired girl across from me smiled and spoke up, "Katy, yeah, this is the Zeus table. You've probably figured out that Jack's not technically a son of Zeus – or Poseidon, for that matter – but his Poseidon roots make him Big Three material. The Big Three all had powerful kids in the last Titan War. Well, camp hasn't had contact with two out of three of those kids in fifteen years or so, give or take a year. So, the Big Three stopped having kids… mostly. We're the proof that 'mostly' is not 'always.'" She smiled again, wearily this time. "We Big Three kids stick together. Sit together at lunch, stuff like that. The Athena Cabin hasn't been so nice to Jack in the past, so he's one of us." I nodded, remembering the owls. I noticed Jack's face getting red, and the girl tactfully switched subjects. "Anyway. So, this is the combined Big Three table of Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus. Chiron conveniently looks the other way and Mr. D. couldn't care less." She stopped to take a much-needed breath. "I'm Penelope. Daughter of Zeus."

"I'm Freddy, son of Poseidon," a boy with light auburn hair said next to me. His eyes were aqua-blue with hints of green. "I'm going on a quest with Rose soon." He seemed excited, almost giddy. So that's why Maia was taking over the cabin. I felt Jack wince next to me, and I sighed.

"Hang on one minute, you guys," a redheaded girl said. She stared at me. "I'm Ker."

Well let me tell you, Ker scared the panties off me. Her eyes were black or dark gray or thick, inky purple – I couldn't tell. They looked like dark, dark, deadly storms, and I froze up, just because my instinct told me this girl was dangerous.

"_Damn _it!" Ker slammed her fist on the table. "Just _damn _it. She's _scared _of me! I _told _you this would happen. Hell! They're all freaking scared of me. And these people expect me to sacrifice stuff for my father?"

She stabbed a piece of steak with her fork (which really wasn't helping her case.) She pointed her fork at me (but not in a stabby way, of course), saying, "You know, Katy, Bunny told us about some of Hades's earlier children she knew when she was our age. _Why, _Katy, do you think Nico di Angelo disappeared and _never came back_? I'm with him on this one. Let's all leave this stupid camp, we're not accepted no matter how many cabins they build us. We don't belong. We _never have._"

Penelope and even Freddy looked stunned. Ker ducked her head, but I saw tears sparkling in her eyes.

"Do you know what a ker is, Katy, Penny, Freddy, Jack?" Ker said softly, her voice muffled. "A _female death-spirit._ I'm a female death-spirit."

"Aw, c'mon, Ker, you are not." A boy with lightning-blond hair and violently electric blue eyes like Penelope's sat down. Ker's head popped up and she stared at him. Her mascara hadn't leaked. Water-proof. Genius. Preparation is key.

"Where have you been, Nick?" Penelope laughed. "Katy, this is Nick, my half-brother. Nick, please meet Katy Pierce, daughter of Aphrodite."

Two identical girls followed Nick and bounced down next to Freddy. They were scarily similar – they did everything uniformly. Perfectly in sync with each other.

"I'm Camryn," said one of them.

"I'm Camille," the other twittered. They batted their eyelashes at Nick, then looked at each other and laughed.

Next thing I knew Jack's lips were at my ear. "The bad news is," he whispered. "There are scarier things here than Ker. Luckily, they both respond to Cam."

Camille and Camryn obviously heard him, and snickered. They reminded me of birds.

"Check out one of the perks of being a half-blood, new girl," the one who I could've sworn was Camryn chirped. She held her glass in her hands and commanded, "Shirley Temple with Sprite, but not too much, and six cherries. Oh yeah, and make it _rainbow._"

The multicolored drink in her glass shimmered in the light, and she lifted the blue cherry and plucked it off its stem. She flipped her burgundy hair and smiled triumphantly.

"Don't worry," the one who may or may not have been Camille said, eating her own yellow cherry, "we'll take you out to the weapon shed after dinner. Penny, you want to come?"

Penelope shrugged and chewed her steak thoughtfully.

Camille and Camryn finished their dinners in a hurry while Nick and Ker watched them curiously. They slammed their empty trays down simultaneously, and shrieked, "Let's GO, Katy!"

While they dragged me away, I heard Freddy call, "And there, you've met my sisters, Katy. You'll love 'em."

Jack laughed. "How did you bear living with them for so long?"

I would've bet money that Freddy shrugged.

"I use a sword," Camryn said. I'd insisted that she put her hair in a ponytail so I could tell them apart.

"I use a dagger." Camille smiled sweetly.

I was shocked that they actually did something differently. Camryn showed me her sword, a gleaming blade of a metal she called Celestial bronze. Camille showed me her dagger, which was surprisingly silver.

"It's mostly iron colored to look like silver," she admitted. "But, it's got the Celestial bronze edge. See?" She ran her finger lightly along the edge of the short blade, and I saw the glint of bronze. "So, it's still effective as if it were Cam's sword."

"Monsters," Camryn explained, "are affected by Celestial bronze. Humans are affected by iron and steel and such. Demigods" - she flashed a quick grin – "are lucky enough to be affected by _both._" Lucky me. I grimaced. Only _I _could end up in a predicament like this.

The swords kind of intimidated me. Camille showed me the daggers. They both begged me to choose their type of weapon, until I finally snapped, "Don't you guys have any long-range weapons?"

Both looked startled. "Um, yeah, we have bows and arrows over here," they said together.

The minute I saw the bow I gasped. It was dark, dark, dark brown wood – so dark it looked black – with silver trimmings. It had a dark leather quiver supplied with bronze bows. Something deep inside me tugged. Something deep inside me wanted that bow.

"I-" I had just started to move toward the bow when Camryn and Camille's jaws dropped open.

"I had completely forgotten about that," Camryn whispered.

"What's wrong with it?" I snapped.

"It's cursed," Camille replied.

"It's also Bunny's," Camryn added. It was obvious she couldn't decide which was worse – cursed or made by Bunny. Or if they were the same thing.

"Oh, for Zeus's sake, Cam," an annoyed voice came from behind us. We turned, and there, miraculously, was Bunny.

"Jack told me you were out here," Bunny went on. "All I had to do was threaten to move him into the Athena cabin and he sang like a canary." She smirked. "Let Katy have the bow. It's from a long time ago. It doesn't mean anything to me. Now scram. Campfire's in ten minutes or so. You don't want to be late, and I suspect you want to get that bow magic-ified by Her Majesty the Twelve-Year-Old Witch."

I had watched the Harry Potter movies. Sort of. I'd seen parts and I'd heard people talk about it. All I knew about Bellatrix Lestrange was that she creeped me out.

So when a short girl with curly black hair was standing in the doorway of the Hecate cabin swearing that if I called her by her full first name I'd be as cursed as my new bow, needless to say I was even more creeped out. (However, Camryn assured me that everyone called her Bellatrix anyway.)

Bellatrix Claire "Anything but Bellatrix" Johnson was twelve years old. She had inky black curls that fell to just below her shoulders and amber eyes that reminded me of a cat.

"You need the bow enchanted," she said matter-of-factly. "Come. I will need one ordinary item of Katy's and I can make the two items" – she held her hands up with one finger up each – "become one." She drew her fingers together and smiled.

Camryn pulled her hair out of the borrowed purple elastic and handed it to Bellatrix. "Here."

"Alright, Katy," Bellatrix said cheerily. "You go to campfire. I'll work on this." Her face was pained, and I could tell _she wanted to be at that campfire._

"No," Camille said. "You come with us. Do it later tonight."

Bellatrix's whole face lit up, and I started to reconsider my first opinions of her.

But opinions aside… I was going to have my new, enchanted bow by the next morning.

**A/N: Hah, some Harry Potter mojo there for you – a friend of mine told me a long time ago how Bellatrix killed a fox (a friend who knows me as Fox) and I've thought she was really cool ever since. I was watching Harry Potter this morning (Half-Blood Prince, I think) and she popped up and I was like, "Oh my gods, there's my daughter of Hecate!" I've never actually read any of the Harry Potter books except the last one and even that I don't remember much.**

**Do you like Cam&Cam? I like them a lot. They're just so random sometimes. I get that they might annoy a lot of readers, it depends on your taste :)**

**Once again, thank you very much to all my faithful readers and reviewers and please keep it up :D**


	6. She Hung Up

**A/N: Woo, sorry this took so much longer than usual to update. I was busy having a life for once xP Quick Night World shout-out in this chapter; Adrianna's an avid fan. She's also married to Ash, so back off.**

Camryn and Camille led me to the amphitheater. I noticed Bellatrix sitting down next to Freddy, and Jack and Gina beckoned me over to where they were sitting.

"Katy, I haven't seen you all day!" Gina shrieked, flinging herself at me.

"Did you get a weapon?" Jack asked excitedly. He seemed most interested in the weapon part. I glanced at Gina and rolled my eyes.

"Jack has a sword that he secretly calls _Ass-Kicker,_" Gina explained. "I've got twin swords I call Gemini."

Jack leaned over and whispered, "She means Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum."

"Shut up, Jack. You are so full of yourself. I'd like to see 'Ass-Kicker' beat me in a duel."

"Then it's on, Daniels."

"You got it, Chase. Tomorrow morning?"

Jack bit his lip. "Um. I can't tomorrow."

"Well why not?" Gina's smirk fell into a puzzled scowl.

"Uh…"

"Rose is leaving for her quest tomorrow," Aiko appeared beside Gina, Anthony at her side as always. She was batting her eyelashes innocently.

"How would _you _know…" Jack trailed off when Anthony burst out laughing.

"Kid," Anthony chuckled. "The entire Aphrodite cabin has their eyes on you and Rose. Yes. Even the guys. She's a head taller than you, but you still make a good couple."

Gina snorted.

Jack seemed to be annoyed by the reference to his height and muttered, "Well you can't call me 'kid,' Luck. You're only two years older than me." Anthony was sixteen. Aiko was a year younger. And yes, their last name was really Luck.

Anthony and Aiko smirked and slinked away. I was starting to notice people's appearances more – Jack's big blue eyes, Gina's even mouth, Anthony and Aiko's slinky cat-like beauty, Rose's mist-like green eyes, fine dark hair, slightly tanned skin… the girl was just too perfect.

And I worshipped her for it.

Oh, God, (Gods, I corrected quickly) I thought. I'm becoming one of them.

"Katy, are you okay? You look kinda weird." Gina's face was twisted up in a puzzled expression.

"Gina," I whispered. "I need to call my step-mom. She has to be home by now."

Gina handed me her phone silently and I dialed my home number. Adrianna picked up on the first ring.

Superb. (You can decide whether or not that's sarcastic, because it could go either way with me.)

"Who _is _this? It's not that hot friend of Katy's, Jack Chase, is it?" I heard Adrianna snapping her gum. Yeah, she's my age, so she knows Jack. In his history class, I think.

Oh, gods, no. I saw Gina scowling and Jack's cheeks turning red, and I figured they could hear her.

"_Adrianna,_" I said through gritted teeth. "He can _hear _you."

"Oopsies." She didn't sound all that sorry.

"I need to talk to Lucy."

"Not home yet. Whatcha need? Does it involve Jack?"

"Kind of. Just call me when Lucy gets home, okay?"

"Sure thing, kiddo. By the way, Mary-Lynnette and Ash are getting to their climax point, so you owe me for taking away my _Night World _reading time. Jade will sic Tiggy on you, I swear."

"No, Jade will not sic Tiggy on me. Want me to tell you what happens? Okay, so Ash-"

Muffled shriek. Click. Dial tone.

I handed Gina back her phone. "She hung up on me."

"Campfire's almost over, anyway," Jack said cheerily. I would've bet good money that he was giddy 'cause Adrianna called him hot. "You missed the sing-a-long with your stupid non-sword weapon. I bet it doesn't kick ass, either."

Gina and Jack's cabins were three and four, so they walked back together. I caught up with Maia and Rose.

"I'm going on my quest tomorrow." Rose smiled rapturously.

"Excited?" Maia asked her.

"Yeah," Rose replied cheerily. "Hey, Katy, I hear you're an option for the backup team!"

"What's that?" Jack and Gina had told me about quests, but no one had mentioned a backup team.

"If a quest group is gone for longer than expected," Maia explained, "the backup team is sent out to bring them home. Bunny put it into effect recently."

"But… I haven't been here long."

"I requested you personally," Rose said, smiling again.

"That's… really nice of you, Rose. Thanks." I didn't really know what else to say.

Rose gave one last small, sad smile before she disappeared into the Aphrodite cabin. The smile unnerved me. I realized why just as I was climbing into bed.

It was the smile of someone who knew a secret.

Gina and Jack had told me about demigod dreams, but I was totally unprepared for what hit me. They're always so… vivid. They're _real._

First I was just skipping in a meadow, while Gina showed me how to make strawberries grow with just a wave of her hand. Then my vision jarred a little and the scene changed.

I couldn't see anything. The world was black. I was just sitting in the darkness, relying on my ears alone.

"Brilliant," said a female voice. She sounded stunned. I felt like I recognized it, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it, as if someone was playing with my ears.

"Thank you," replied another serene female voice. Once again, I couldn't quite connect the voice with a face.

"You know what you have to do now," the first voice said matter-of-factly. "It really is an excellent plan," she added.

"I have already called in the distraction. They are set to arrive tomorrow."

"If we're lucky."

"Yes, if we're lucky. The good thing is, we _are_ lucky."

They laughed.

**A/N: Sorry that was such a short chapter, but if all goes as planned the next one will be more connected and this is the only break-off point in sight.**

**I'm sorry this story has been so non-action-packed. I'm going to try to include a kickbutt fight soon, so never fear.**

**Oh yeah and quick PJO joke: I was fiddling around on the Harry Potter wikia and I read Snape's bio and, inside my head, screamed, "HE'S A HALF-BLOOD! I BET HIS GOD PARENT IS HADES!"**

**So that's how you know if you're obsessed with PJO, folks. You have tried to figure out Severus Snape's god parent.**

***reads further into Snape's page* OHMYGOD, I just spoiled one of the books for myself! Wheeee! Remind me to read the books at some point.**

**Once again thanks for r&r'ing and review :D**


	7. The Great Departure of Jack's True Love

**A/N: Once again I do not own PJO. (I'm just gonna interject this message on random chapters)**

"Wakey wakey, Katy Katy," a voice sounded. Muffled giggles came from behind it.

"Go _away, _Anthony," I muttered, pulling my pillow over my head.

After the freakish dream, I'd gone back to the meadow just in time to witness Jack and Gina frolicking and picking daisies. They both had dandelion chains in their hair. I made a conscious decision not to tell them about either dream.

"It's Jack, Katy," the voice urged. "C'mon and wake up or you'll miss it."

Oh yeah. The Great Departure of Jack's One and Only True Love.

"I'm up, I'm up...," I mumbled, not removing my head from under the pillow.

Jack promptly took hold of my legs and dragged me out of bed. I opened one eye to see him standing over me with Gina behind him, her arms folded. She had a twisted smile on her face, such a mixture of joy, annoyance, and grief that I did the Katy-ish thing and pretended not to see it, too afraid to deal with whatever was bothering Gina. Real courageous of me, eh?

Gina tossed me a bundle of clothing. "C'mon. We'll wait outside while you get changed."

I changed quickly, noticing that the t-shirt she'd chosen for me was green. I guess I was lucky I didn't get a bowl of Wheaties hidden in the jeans.

When I got outside, Jack and Gina were waiting for me, as promised.

"So what's your fatal flaw, then, Superman?" Gina was saying.

"Impulsiveness and a big heart," he replied casually.

Gina snorted, but a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"Alright." Jack jumped up immediately. Gina got up more slowly, a look of loathing on her face.

That's when we heard the screams.

Gina sprung into action first.

At the first sight of the hellhound, she pulled out her Gemini and ran at the hellhound, a piercing battle cry sounding from her throat. She desperately tried to hold its attention, but the hellhound had other ideas.

Jack had moved to protect a few other kids, mostly young or unarmed ones. Little Bellatrix jogged up to me and handed me my purple hair elastic.

"Here," she said simply.

"What's this going to do?" I snapped, irritable that my friends were useful and I wasn't.

Bellatrix smiled and stretched it, then let it go. Like a slingshot. I was about to protest, when it started to form into the shape of the dark bow. The leather quiver appeared over my shoulder.

"_Cool,_" I gaped. Bellatrix smiled and slunk away to stand beside Jack.

Anyway, like I was saying, the hellhound had other ideas. It ignored Gina's bravado and romped towards Jack, who was taken by surprise. After that, it turned towards Ker, the daughter of Hades I'd met at dinner, who evidently hadn't brought her sword. She screamed. Bellatrix giggled and her hands glowed slightly blue. She frowned, and seemed to be struggling for awhile, but then she got control of herself and shot a blue ball of energy at the hellhound.

The hellhound didn't seem to notice. Bellatrix stomped her foot and started charging up for another shot.

Unfortunately, we really didn't have time for that. The hellhound sprang at Jack; Jack managed to recover from his initial shock and block the blow.

However, he really didn't need to. Gina let out a fierce scream of rage and charged at the hellhound, leaping and just missing the hellhound with her right sword, but catching it on the leg with her left.

Katy time, I thought. I could fire a bow, right? I'd seen it done a thousand times, and anyway, as a demigod, this kind of thing was in my blood.

I clumsily set an arrow into my bow, the deadly sharp bronze point glinting in the sunlight. You'll probably say I overreacted, but I was really nervous. Yet another angry war cry came from the woods, echoed many times over by many voices. Startled, I jumped a little and the arrow flew a tipsy-looking path towards the hellhound. The hellhound suddenly burst into dust and imploded with a _poof. _All that was left was a claw three times the size of my index finger.

"Did I just… did I just kill a hellhound?" I said, shocked into almost-speechlessness.

Unfortunately, I didn't. Another cry (what is it with the cries today?) came from the woods.

"_HELL _YES!" a feminine voice shrieked. A tall girl with brown hair appeared where the hellhound had just been and picked up the claw, dancing in place.

"Did y'all see that? I just killed a hellhound," the girl said triumphantly. A pack of a dozen or so other girls followed her, warily.

The brunette kept dancing. Her tanned skin glowed faintly, as if the moon were reflecting off of her.

"Helloooooo." She seemed to notice us for the first time. "Jeesh, I had some nice times in this camp. Chiron still around? And where the heck is Bunny?"

Bunny's face was a mixture of confusion and shock.

"Gods, Bunny, don't you remember me? It's _Callie, _bebe! Tu amiga!" Callie's face fell. "I was a half-blood too, remember? I saved you and your dead-ish friend, like, fifteen years ago!"

Bunny blinked. Then she pulled it together and laughed. "Of course, Callie. Sorry about that. Memory fails you as you get older!" She smiled brightly. Callie still looked skeptical.

"Can we go now?" Rose tapped her foot impatiently. "I know you'll all be caught up with these… girls." Freddy nodded.

"Yes," Bunny said quickly, before Chiron could interject. Rose took off at the speed of light, with Freddy right behind her.

"Who are these girls?" I asked Gina quietly, half-afraid of being ridiculed.

"The Hunters of Artemis." Rose answered, her voice emanating dislike.

A little girl with reddish brownish hair came through the cluster of girls. She smiled and turned to Callie. Her yellow-silver moon-ish eyes shone and creeped me out. They reminded me of Adrianna's cat's eyes. After giving an approving nod to Callie, passing over Jack and Gina with a glance of distaste, and then turned to Bunny and Chiron.

"Callie and Thalia wanted to take a trip to camp," she said with a ring of authority in her voice. "So I let them."

"Excellent!" Bunny replied enthusiastically.

"I trust they can stay in Cabin Eight?" Chiron said.

"Of course," the auburn-haired girl said, smiling in a way that made me feel like I was the little child, not her.

"Who's she?" I whispered again to Gina.

"That," Callie called, having heard me, "is Artemis. Goddess of the hunt."

**A/N: Once again sorry for a messy ending and short chapter, and my sloppiness with Artemis's character, but I'm leaving for my grandparents' for Thanksgiving in a few minutes and I wanted to wish y'all a happy Thanksgiving and have fun shopping at Macy's at 4 AM on Friday. And not to mention Sears – shop 'til you drop there before Black Friday even begins! You **_**might **_**not pass out before you get to Macy's.**

**Anyway. I reread my chapter 6 and I'm really annoyed. The ominous ending of the paragraph before the dream is not nearly as ominous as I wanted it to be since the spacing is all messed up. I've been trying to fix that.**

**Also I'm very horribly sorry about the sloppy fight scene. I've never been good at that stuff. My characters have good backstabbers and good (and sometimes tragic! Whee!) romantic plots, but never good action. **

**Oh yeah, and let me know what you think of my characters if you get a chance. And what color should I make Katy's eyes? I can't decide. Brown is too normal, blue is overdone, green is overdone, something unusual? That puts her in the Mary-Sue range. Augh! Ooh, I know, hazel! Duh. Silly Fox. Solved my own problem. I rock. I deserve a cookie. So, send cookies along with your reviews, since I don't like turkey…**

**Happy Thanksgiving!**


	8. Well, This Sucks

**A/N: I was wrong. Sears doesn't open at midnight; that's Wal-Mart. Or maybe both… whatever. Oh yeah, and I ended up getting my own cookies. They're in the oven now :) **

**PLUS, I'm not sure if I'll include Thalia since she's such a major character with a well-defined personality and I'm awful at writing other people's characters. So, yeah…**

**Have you ever looked inside a cat's ear? It's really weird.**

**Also, I'm **_**really **_**annoyed since I made an error about The Lost Hero. You remember how Jason mentioned a girl named Reyna? Well I thought she was named Reina and so I had a freak-out because if she'd been named Reina, I would know who she was…**

**Random fun fact to wrap up our A/N: I picture Travis Stoll as Nick Jonas and Connor as a younger-looking Draco Malfoy. That is all. **

Okay, so, the goddess of the hunt is eleven years old. Okay, I can deal with that. Not… weird… at… all.

Of course, seeing Artemis, I was reminded that I had never seen my own mother. Really, wouldn't you want your mom to be the first goddess you ever saw? Not to mention that the presence of Callie was confusing the crap out of me – she spoke to Bunny as if they knew each other so well, but not only did Callie look thirteen and Bunny thirty-two (I mean, really, I get that the hunters are immortal, but actually having proof is kind of disturbing), but Bunny looked even more confused than I felt. I think she tried to hide it, though.

Maia and even sweet little Myrtle avoided the hunters at all costs. Aiko and Anthony seemed more interested. Myrtle patiently explained (with background noises from Maia that mostly seemed to include retching) that the hunters had to swear off love forever, which, of course, being the daughters of the goddess of love, I would think would peeve the two of them off a bit. Anthony and Aiko, Maia said, were a lost cause.

Oh yeah, by the way, Rose and Freddy managed to slip away while we were distracted by the hunters and the hellhound incident. Jack whined endlessly, and Bellatrix stomped off to her cabin. The rest of the crowd dispersed as well.

"Belltrix's been hopelessly in love with Freddy for as long as I can remember," Myrtle remarked. When I looked surprised, she turned to me and laughed, red curls bouncing. "Oh, Katy, you may have other gifts, but you can't spot love worth a dime."

"It was Camryn and Camille and Freddy who brought Bellatrix to camp. Really quite romantic," Gina put in cheerily.

Maia cocked her head to one side, listening. "Well, speak of the devil…"

"And the devil shall appear," Myrtle finished bitterly.

Camryn was running towards me at top speed, with Camille hot on her heels.

"Maia, Gina, you're needed in the Big House," Camryn said. "Cabin meeting thing. Head counselors. You know the drill."

"I want two representatives from the Aphrodite cabin," Bunny called from behind her. "Katy will do." She shot Myrtle a glare, who had opened her mouth to protest.

Myrtle grumbled darkly while Maia and Bunny led me off to the Big House. When we were there, she waited outside, still muttering. I was surprised at how many of the head counselors I already knew when I took my seat beside Maia. Nick and Ker from dinner were in for Zeus and Hades, respectively. Camille, surprisingly without Camryn, took a seat as the head counselor for Poseidon, and Gina sat beside her as a daughter of Demeter. A boy with brown hair I didn't recognize who was as much a son of Ares as Rose is a daughter of Aphrodite. A willowy, annoyed-looking blond girl with stormy gray eyes sat to his left. Ten or so other kids I didn't recognize. You get the point.

"Bellatrix not here?" Camille started off the meeting.

"Bellatrix, unfortunately, has other matters, most of which include moping in that lonely one-woman cabin of hers," Maia replied, looking bored.

Bunny rolled her eyes and Chiron began, "We have a few announcements as well as some things to discuss."

"Firstly," Bunny said. "The backup team, though I have doubts it will be needed, for Rose Hamilton and Freddy Masen will be Katy Pierce and Jack Chase."

"But, _Bunny_!" The gray-eyed blonde's face changed from annoyance to astonishment. "But _Bunny, _you can't send the fish boy on a rescue mission!"

Gina gritted her teeth. "Why not, Sage?"

Sage smiled primly and said, "As a daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom, I will volunteer to go in the fish boy's place."

"What the hell?" Gina muttered.

"Seeing as the fish boy's god blood is too divided to actually give him any strengths-"

"Sage," Gina hissed. "Say that one more time…"

"Fish boy." Sage smirked. "What's wrong, honey? You in love with the fish boy?"

Maia chuckled darkly, like someone watching a movie. And it was, kind of, like a movie. I just hoped Gina didn't turn on me.

The ground started to crack a little, and Sage turned white. I noticed that Gina was on her feet, and a pale green plant crept its way up the legs of Sage's chair, binding at her wrists where her hands gripped the seat.

"Holy Zeus, Gina, if you were evil, this would be like a horror story," Ker remarked. "Like that one we wrote in sixth grade, Nick! Gods, remember that?" She giggled, and Nick cracked a smile.

"Remind me to read that someday," Maia said, with a sly smile. I noticed how all attention had been taken off of Sage. Chiron looked like he wanted to say something but Bunny seemed to be stopping him. She was finding this entirely too amusing. (Conclusion: Sage is not well liked.)

"You came up with the whole plotline." Ker rolled her eyes and smiled slowly. You know, that soft and irresistible slow, borderline flirty smile that I tend to use a lot involuntarily. With this realization, I smiled myself. I guess I did have some love goddess blood in me.

"Okay, kiddies, let's keep this meeting PG-13." Camille grinned.

Bunny looked just about ready to end this. "Alright, kids. Wrap it up. Gina, please ignore that last statement and unwrap Sage." Sage was really nervous now, paper-white and up to her elbows in pale green stems.

Gina looked reluctant, but slowly the plant crept back into the dirt.

Immediately, Sage regained her composure. She coughed and spluttered. "Ugh! What was that vile stuff? It was the most horrid, atrocious, terrible plant I've ever come in contact with. I bet its name is just as vile as the whole damn thing. What's it called?"

Gina, having been on her way out the door, turned around and smirked. "Sage. It's called sage."

Sage immediately turned scarlet and slammed her fist on the table. "Let's just get this over with."

Chiron looked at Bunny, who stayed stonily silent. And so, Chiron began, "We're not exactly sure why certain people were targeted at the hellhound attack." Ker blushed.

"It's not usual for a hellhound to attack a daughter of Hades," Nick commented.

"It's not usual for a hellhound to attack camp at all," the Ares boy put in.

"Well, actually," Chiron continued. "A hellhound attacked camp when Bunny was little. Do you remember that, Bunny?"

Bunny nodded. "Wasn't that when the Jackson kid had just started? I was eight years old, for Hades's sake, Chiron."

"Can we adjourn?" Maia asked, filing her nails with an evidently ever-present nail filer.

"We haven't come to a conclusion yet," Chiron protested.

Bunny's oddly-colored eyes flashed gratefully. "Too bad. Meeting adjourned," she said with a grin.

"Katy! Katy Pierce! KATY!"

I hadn't been in my cabin for five blissful moments before Camryn and Camille came knocking at the door in a panicky whirlwind.

"Katy, Katy, come to our cabin, PLEASE!" Camryn begged.

"We have something to show you!" Camille added.

After much protesting and begging, I gave up and followed the pair to Cabin Three. With Freddy gone, it seemed oddly empty. (Of course, the twins quickly fixed that – nothing is ever truly empty with Camryn and Camille around.)

Camryn played around with their TV until she flicked it to the news channel. On it were pictures of me, Jack, and Gina.

"_Students of local middle school disappeared Tuesday. They were last seen in the hallways at approximately 1:25PM on Tuesday and there was a possible sighting on a bus heading to Manhattan._" Possible sighting? What am I, the Loch Ness Monster? The perky blond newscaster prattled on, "_Missing students are Katherine Pierce, Jack Chase, and Regina Daniels._" I turned to Gina, who'd been fetched by Jack.

"Your first name is Regina?" I said, giggling.

"And yours is Katherine." She rolled her eyes. "Can we get to the point?"

"The point is," Jack said slowly, "that the entire city of New York is looking for us."

"We need to know how to keep them off our butts," I said.

"We also need to know," Gina continued, soft and slow, "why Adrianna kept her mouth shut."

**A/N: Haha, Gina's first name is Regina. I went onto a name-meaning site to get a lot of these names, and when I looked to see what Gina meant, I realized it wasn't actually given as a full name (according to the website.) I also learned how to spell Camryn correctly, and that's how Aiko got her name. I was browsing the feminine names and the name Aiko caught my eye – so I clicked it. It means "love, affection," and that's perfect for Aiko, am I right?**

**Also, one last thing: I know that Bunny uses Hades's name in the place of Zeus's occasionally. She is in no way whatsoever some Greek version of some Satanistic cultist lady. I'd love to explain but it would give away secrets. **


	9. Blondes Who Prophecy of Evil Rodents

**A/N: And here's where the fun begins… :) **

The entire cabin was dead silent. Even Camryn and Camille were uncharacteristically quiet. I'm dead serious; _you could have heard a pin drop._

"I have to get home," I whispered. "I have to see Adrianna and Lucy for myself. Please, guys."

"We'll come with you," Gina spoke quietly.

"We will?" Jack said, before Gina reached over and pinched him. "I mean, um, yeah, we will."

It really wasn't that late in the day. We could take the bus, get to my house, and have a nice long chat with my family, plus get back before dinner.

We boarded the same bus as before, and we did get a few odd looks either for being out of school at noon or for being, you know, those kids _on the news _and stuff. I was hoping for the former rather than the latter.

We got off the bus and walked to my apartment. When we knocked on the door, Lucy opened it up and smiled as if I were bringing my friends home for cookies rather than chewing out my step-sister. It was actually shocking; she didn't seem to even notice we'd been missing for… what, a day or two? I felt a jolt of surprise. I had only been gone twenty-four hours.

"Katy!" Lucy enveloped me in a hug. I never got used to the fact that she was so young. She married my father when Adrianna and I were a year old or so, when she was nineteen. (Which, if you do the math, makes her thirty-two now.) She smiled at Jack and Gina, brushing blond hair away from her eyes. Lucy did love her hair. "Are these your friends?"

"No, Lucy, they're random strangers I decided to bring home," I said sarcastically. "This is Gina Daniels, and over there about to break something is Jack Chase. Adrianna home?"

"Yeah, actually, she stayed home sick with a headache today," Lucy replied, startled.

Gina and Jack exchanged a glance. Coincidence? Um. No.

I took off down the hall, leaving Gina and Jack to make acquaintances with my step-mom (shut up, my manners are fine!)

Of course, when you hear "Telephone" by Lady Gaga playing full blast and accompanied by Adrianna's clear, beautiful voice – well, I figured she had faked the headache. I also figured that Lucy had some sort of ear-related incompetence. I knocked on Adrianna's closed bedroom door and the singing abruptly shut off. She swung open the door, looking miserable. Even her pale red locks of hair hung limply, for once the curls not straightened. The nose ring (she did it herself. Lucy had a fit) she always wore, a little red rhinestone, looked dull. The girl was a born actress.

"Oh, Mom! My headache just…" then she realized that I wasn't Lucy, so her fake-sick expression evaporated and she looked nervous. "Oh, hi, Katy. Come on in." She ushered me in the door and shut it, turning the music down, but not off.

"Why didn't you tell Lucy you'd talked to me?" I snapped.

"I was going to," she pleaded. "I swear. But I took a nap, and I had a dream…" She trailed off. "These two people were telling me to keep quiet," she continued. "They said if I didn't, if I told Lucy, that the plan would succeed and we'd all be slaves to a rodent."

"A rodent?" I said, giggling.

"Yeah, the woman said that. There was a man and a woman, but the woman looked a lot older. Like, Mom's age. The man didn't look a day over eighteen. They were both blond. That's all I remember. I'm sorry, Katy. It was just a dream. I should've told Mom that you were okay."

In the background, the song ended and some sort of hard rock tune (Adrianna prides herself for her variety) came on, while I sat, stunned by Adrianna's dream.

"Inside the Fire by Disturbed," Adrianna said softly.

"What?"

"The song."

"Oh."

We sat there for awhile, silent, but Jack and Gina knocked on the door saying it was time to go. I hugged Lucy and waved goodbye, but the door hadn't even shut completely when I unleashed the story of the dream.

"That sounds like a half-blood dream," Gina said after a few moments of more silence.

"Agreed," Jack mumbled. "I wonder who the people were."

"And the rodent," I said softly.

"We'll ask Chiron when we get back," Gina promised.

The rest of the ride back to camp was eerily quiet, and no one said what we were all thinking: Could mortals have demigod dreams?

Of course, nothing is ever, ever as easy as we need it to be. The three of us just have bad luck.

"Katy!" Despite having been recognized as a half-blood only just over twenty-four hours ago, my name sure was being called a lot. Little Bellatrix Johnson was running to us at top speed, screaming my name at the top of her lungs. Bunny appeared behind her, looking a bit less energetic.

"Katy, Katy, Katy!" Bellatrix begged. "Freddy and Rose haven't been responding to attempted communication. We can't even get an Iris-Message to them, which is, like, _unheard of. _Unless the attempted recipients are dead." Her eyes filled with tears.

"I'm sure they're just fine, Bellatrix," Bunny puffed. "Jack Chase and Katy Pierce, we're in need of the backup team."

Oh, great.

"So what's their mission, anyway?" Jack asked. We'd been called to the Big House for a preparation meeting, and Jack and I were getting restless. Even _I _was impatient and ready to leave.

"Apollo threw a fit," Chiron sighed.

"Again," Bunny muttered.

"And so he left Olympus… and is somewhere out west, we think," Chiron continued. I was beginning to notice that Bunny got ignored a lot.

"Kansas, I'll bet," Bunny grumbled. "Apollo always did have a love for Kansas." Her eyes sparkled. "There's so much wheat, the whole state looks like the sun."

"So you're asking us to track down the immature Lord of the Sun," I said skeptically, raising an eyebrow. My statement was taken to be rhetorical.

"So Kansas it is?" Jack looked hopeful.

"Yes, I've got plane tickets to Wichita for the both of you." Bunny (quite dramatically I might add) placed two white slips of paper on the table.

"Where did you get free plain tickets?" Chiron asked, incredulous.

"I know a guy," Bunny replied coolly.

"I thought you were the whiner that never got claimed," Dionysus spoke for the first time. "And I'll bet five drachmas you're talking about a god."

"Daughter of Demeter," Bunny said, bristling. She turned to Jack and I and snapped, "You two can go."

**A/N: Yeah, well, I had to give the main character a quest in order to make this exciting at all… the good stuff happens when Katy gets **_**back. **_**I'm really going to enjoy this. **

**Yes… we are in fact going to drag poor Adrianna into this whole mess. Yes, by the ears is fine, fox minions. Go get 'er. **

**My apologies for the appearance of the tickets and of the little detail on the do-they-have-passports can-two-kids-travel-alone because A. I haven't been on a plane since I was seven and B. This is a beautiful, beautiful thing called FICTION.**

**Thank you so much to all who have read and reviewed. Keep it up – it makes my day!**


	10. Oh, Goody

**A/N: Once again I do not own PJO and I really think this disclaimer is pointless because WHY WOULD RICK RIORDAN WRITE FANFICTION? He's not a FAN. He's the creator! *grumble grumble***

**I just thought I'd share this: In my notebook dedicated to my fanfic(s), on Jack Chase's page, he's called a dunce multiple times.**

**This chapter might get a little confusing. I'm adding a new POV, just experimenting a little :)**

**Adrianna POV**

Oh, well aren't I so blessed.

After Katy called me, I hiked back to my room (having been dragged out of my reading reverie by a merciless and rudely-timed phone call) and promptly fell asleep.

Did I care that my sister was okay? Yes. Had I noticed that she was gone? …Maybe. Depends on how you look at it. I'm sure "Hey, Katy's not here" flitted through my subconscious mind at some point. I'm sorry, okay? I'm just so focused on everything else in life. Such as… Ash Redfern (who does not exist.)

So anyhow, while I was asleep, I, being the lucky girl that I am, had this freaky mojo dream about two blondes who were really ominous. I remembered most details. I'm detail-oriented. I also like to talk. A lot. Which is funny, considering that it's my stupid sister who's the daughter of the goddess of female stereotypes. (And Katy is proud of this?) How did I know this? Hush up and listen, I'll explain in a sec.

I was in a cloud. I'm serious, I was in a cloud. I was pretty sure I was dreaming, until I saw the people. People in dreams just don't have that sort of detail, and they were real, complete people I'd never seen before in my life. Did you know that your brain can't create complete human beings? If you see a whole person, with a complete, realistic face and unique features, then you have seen that person before, you just don't remember them. So. Yeah. I knew I had never seen these two before, but they were real and complete. Finished products.

The woman was short and skinny. She had hair like sunlight and blue eyes like the sky. She was probably my mom's age, early thirties, but she reminded me of my mom in the way that she still looked young. She had an aura of youth and… something else. Power? Strength? Then it dawned on me. Anger, of course. Silly Adrianna.

"That evil witch! I'll show her, I swear." The woman was pacing furiously.

The man – or boy, it depends on your view – couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen, with curly blond-ish hair and sparkling blue eyes, like he knew a funny secret.

He grinned. "C'mon. Be a little patient, will you… um… what're you going by now?"

"Raksha-Reina, you idiot. It means _Demon Queen._ Raksha means The Demon and Reina means queen."

"It does not, and don't you think it's a little ironic for _you _to go by Demon Queen?"

"Just shut up. I agreed to do this dream crap with you, so."

"True."

The woman turned to me and smiled brightly. "Adrianna Powers, is it? Gods, I love your mother. She's a real nice lady."

I blinked. No one had ever seemed so… enthusiastic… to meet me before. It wasn't like I had any close relatives – my dad had walked out on us just after I was born, and my mom's an only child. I come from a long line of only children.

"Listen," the guy continued, "you need to keep your mouth _closed _about your step-sister."

"Yeah," the woman, Raksha-Reina or… something…, agreed. "It'd go really badly for us if you didn't. Just trust me."

Trust you why? Because you managed to show up in my dream? I sighed.

"If you told anyone, the plan would succeed and we'd all be slaves to a freaking rodent." See? I _told _you there was a rodent involved.

"Oh yeah and," the man interjected, "beware of snakes." Huh? Is there some sort of animal theme that I missed out on?

"Can't you just tell me what you two are talking about?" I protested.

"He's famous for being ominous," Raksha-whatever said, with a twinkle in her eye.

I groaned, and Raksha-Reina laughed and continued. "Bring down the demon queen, Adrianna."

"But you said that _you_…"

"She says a lot of things," the guy said with an eye roll. "C'mon, "Raksha," let's go." He put air quotes around "Raksha."

The dream disappeared, and I suddenly found myself lying in my bed, sweating to death under my fluffy purple comforter.

And, undoubtedly, I knew what I had to do. It was simple, really.

I picked up the next Maximum Ride book and acted as if my sister didn't even exist. I mean, really, I like Max and all, but she's an idiot… but idiocy does make for some _excellent _suspense. "Ooh, hey, let's piss off the blind kid! Wheee!" I mean, really, Max? You better hope he can't tell where your face is. (I'd better hope he can so you have a black eye.) I smiled to myself and went back to the book.

Ooh, Katy was gonna get me for this one.

**Katy POV**

The plane ride had been _boring. _Jack and I had barely known each other until less than a week ago, so what were we supposed to talk about? Um. Awkward.

Anyway, we landed in Wichita and managed to pass through all the security crap without anyone asking why two fourteen-year-olds were on a plane by themselves. Then again, we had three gods (or two, depending on Athena's mood) helping us out, so maybe it wasn't so miraculous.

Wichita surprised me by being… so _normal. _It didn't look very… wheaty.

We didn't get too far before a woman with black hair sighed and started walking toward us.

Well, let me tell you, that scared the crap right out of Jack. He dragged me (again with the dragging!) into a dark alleyway (and this is smart because…?) but of course, because Jack and I are simply _showered _by the gods with good luck, the woman, looking irritated, followed us.

"Jack Chase and Katy Pierce?" she asked, once she'd cornered us. (I'd just like to point out that this is Jack's fault. Oh, Gods, I sound like Gina.)

"Remind me again why we didn't demand that Bunny give us a taser?" Jack hissed.

I didn't answer. Instead, I slowly (and dramatically!) reached behind my head and released my hair from the elasti-bow. The black-haired woman sighed, and I noticed for the first time that she looked a lot like Bunny. The same dark hair, impatient face, except that this woman seemed a lot… sunnier… than Bunny. I narrowed my eyes and snapped the elastic. My bow – Bunny's bow – appeared, loaded and ready. Sort of. I fumbled with it while Jack grinned.

"Katy, really, I wouldn't recommend that," he said, chuckling.

"He's right," the woman snapped. "I'd have to kill you, and Apollo would be _really _mad at me then, which would be kind of unfortunate."

I lowered the bow. "We're looking for Apollo. You know where he is."

The woman raised her eyes heavenward. "Yes, child. I am Demeter, goddess of the harvest."

Thanks for showing up, Mom.

"You're looking for Apollo," Demeter continued. "You are in the wrong place." There was a glint in her eye that may or may not have been amusement. "He's not in Wichita."

"So… where is he?" I snarled, taking what I called the "Max Ride" approach – acting as if everyone except your boyfriend is out to kill you, and being totally rude to authority. (Really, people, if you live with two young boys who know how to make bombs, you're a total nag, and they have not killed you yet, you can probably trust them. Just saying.)

"I'm nice, and I'm getting bribed, so I'll help you along a little. After all, you're not _technically _on an actual quest and this is a life or death situation so I can interfere all I want. I could zap Rose dead right now, but what would be the fun in that?" She smiled. "Good luck, eat lots of cereal, and oh, say hi to my daughter for me."

"Bunny?" I asked curiously. I mean, honestly, the woman has countless daughters.

Demeter frowned. "I don't have a daughter named Bunny. I meant Gina. Gina Daniels."

My last thought before my eyes closed and everything went black was, _oh, great._

And here's where Demeter's idea of "fun" begins.

**A/N: …and here's where Fox's idea of "fun" begins.**

**Whew, sorry that took so long. I described it to a friend as being five steps from the top of a mountain (since I'm very close to the smooth-sailing easy-to-write part of the story, I hope) but not being able to climb those last five steps. Anyway, my second and third characters (Jack and Katy, respectively, are losing to Gina. Gina's romantic life is so easy and so cliché that I might just have to kill her love interest. Tee-hee.)**

**WOO, we're getting to the reason Bunny is in this story!**

**WOO! WOO! WOO! WOO! (I'm excited, can you tell?)**

**Sorry for all the other-book references. I've already got plans to make another Harry Potter reference (which I have still not read) and one or two Jungle Book references (which we're reading in English class.) The Hunger Games will be mentioned as well, so thank you very much to the authors of those books because unfortunately I do not own any of those or else I would not be here, and instead I would be swimming in my million-dollar heated indoor pool despite it being December second :) Only problem is, the other Harry Potter reference is a Jungle Book reference within Harry Potter, so what do I call that? Teehee.**

**Thank you to EVERYONE who has read up to this point and thank you for bearing with me!**


	11. In Which Adrianna is Confused

**A/N: I found a new thing to fix my spacing problem! See the three little deltas in between sections? Whee!**

**Adrianna POV**

The day after Katy visited, or, technically, the night after Katy visited, I (hesitantly) went to sleep and, you guessed it, had another crappy dream.

I was in the same damn cloud, but a different woman sat in front of me. She was on a four-legged stool gabbing into a phone cheerily, like the way those perky, bubbly middle school girls do (i.e. Katy. Do you know what it's like to live with that for thirteen years?)

The woman shut her phone and smiled a dazzling, glittery smile. I blinked rapidly. I couldn't seem to bring her form into focus; her face kept changing. Only one thing stayed the same – she had the same dark blue eyes as Katy.

"Adrianna Powers, right?" she said, her smile widening so that I was beginning to wonder if I needed sunglasses or not.

"Uh, yes, ma'am," I mumbled.

"I'd love to stay and chat, but I have work to do." She clapped her hands briskly. "You know my daughter. Katy Pierce."

"You're Katy's _mother_?" I gaped at her. I didn't really know which I felt more of – astonishment or anger.

She opened her mouth to reply but I exploded.

"Where the hell have you been?" I snarled. "How dare you leave her alone? How… how…" I stared at her, at a loss.

She blushed, looking ashamed. "I don't stay with my children long."

"CHIL_DREN_?"

"Just listen, okay?" she snapped. Oh, yeah, she was Katy's mom, alright. She took a deep breath. "I'm the goddess Aphrodite."

My mouth dropped open at this point, but the pretty woman, whether she was Aphrodite or not, smiled and continued.

"Greek gods are _real, _Adrianna. Katy is half mortal, half god. You and your sister are a part of something. Katy's going to be a _hero._" Her eyes shimmered with tears. "It's been so long since one of my children was a hero."

"I don't really see how this compensates for leaving her alone for thirteen years." My mind was whirling. This was just a dream. Just a dream. As real as the frog in the purple tuxedo and matching top hat that Katy had sworn she saw at the foot of her bed in the middle of the night. As real as Cinderella, and the theory of evil step-mothers and ugly step-sisters. (I don't mean to brag, but I think Katy can testify to the fact that I am very, very far from ugly.)

"You too, of course," Aphrodite continued, waving a hand carelessly. "You'll be a hero, I guess. But right now I need to get you somewhere, and Raksha's gonna kill me if I don't."

"Raksha-Reina? You know her?"

"Of course, darling. All the gods know her. Hades brings her up and says, 'I just found this annoying woman down in the Underworld, you deal with her,' you should've seen Apollo's face. Absolutely priceless. She's pretty much running the saving-the-world production, since the gods can't get directly involved and such. And anyway, that woman would punch Zeus in the face if he tried to cross her." She chuckled. "You, and my daughter, and Gina, and Jack, et cetera, et cetera – you are just the pawns." I recoiled, rather insulted, but Aphrodite wasn't paying attention. Her eyes lit up. "Oh, speaking of Gina. When you see her, tell her I adore her from the marrow of my bones. Romance is so fun." She winked, grinned, and – you guessed it, again – everything went freaking black.

I (Adrianna still, whee) woke up on a moonlit island in… wait for it… wait for it… the middle of freaking nowhere. I sat up and saw that my sister was passed out on the ground nearby, with Jack Chase a few feet away from her. I hadn't been up long enough to get the blurry sleepiness out of my eyes before Jack sat up and yawned.

"Morning, sunshine," I said casually, fishing in my pocket for a pack of gum. When it doubt, chew gum.

Jack looked around and gaped. Honestly, the island was pretty. We were nearby the beach, but there was a piney forest just beyond us. A pretty, pale little flower grew all around us, creating a funky little glow. The whole patch glittered, as if each flower was its own little moon.

"_Do you know where we are_?" Jack turned to me, still gaping. Around this time Katy got up, holding her head.

"Damn it," she groaned. "Something tells me we aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto."

"_You're _closer to Toto than I am," I teased, reaching over and pulling on one of her black strands of hair. She made a face. I wouldn't tell her about her mom, not yet. How do you tell a person that? "Hey, Katy, I met your mom before you did"?

Jack was still staring at the landscape, his mouth hanging open.

"Jack?" Katy's eyes lost their sleepiness immediately and filled with alarm.

"Oh, he's fine," I grumbled. "He's just awe-struck."

"My dad's been here," Jack said softly. "I've heard about this place a million times."

"If your dad's been here then I want to leave," Katy snapped. "I've heard enough about your dad, and oh my gods, I'm so sick of the hero crap. Get me out of here. Rose can… can… I don't even know." Her eyes blazed in narrowed slits.

"Can we back up?" I asked. "I'm totally lost."

Katy's eyes flew open. "Adrianna! What are you doing here?"

"How should I know?" I grumbled. "I had a dream, this lady appeared, and then I woke up here." I shut my mouth quickly, hoping and praying she wouldn't ask about the lady.

"Rose needs us, come on, Katy," Jack begged.

"Rose can handle herself!" Katy hissed.

"So where the hell are we?" I interjected, annoyed at the both of them. And who the heck was Rose? I was totally lost and not in a cool, blissfully ignorant kind of way.

Katy blushed and turned to me. "Rose Hamilton is a girl from the camp I've been at the past couple days. She's my half-sister. My mom is… um…"

"I know," I said flatly. "Aphrodite. She met me in a dream. She brought me here, didn't she?"

"Probably," Jack replied. Katy was speechless. Her entire face was fire-engine, Lego-brick red, and her narrowed blue eyes were shooting flaming, poison-tainted daggers at me. I was very, very glad that looks could not kill.

"Anyway," she said briskly, business-like again, but ignoring me. "Jack, would you please get us off this island."

"Where are we?" I repeated.

"I don't care," Katy snarled. "I just want to get away."

"This is Ogygia. My dad stayed here for a couple weeks. It used to make whoever was on it immortal for while they were there. Unfortunately, when Calypso left, the magic left with her and now it's just an ordinary island. You know, just one that you won't find on any map or anything." He recited it as if he'd heard this a good many times before.

"I'm still not getting the concept of your dad," I mumbled.

"His dad's Percy Jackson. Big hero way back when," Katy answered.

"And Percy Jackson is a god?"

"No," Jack sighed. "It's a long story."

"How long were we out?" Katy snapped suddenly.

"I dunno," Jack replied, running a hand through his blondish-ish hair.

"Who cares?" Katy looked exhausted, despite having just woken up. I just sat there, wide-eyed and… kinda scared. My entire world had just exploded in moonlight and fire and gods and so much. My world had changed so much in just a few days.

"Gods, Adrianna, I'm sorry," she continued. "You poor thing, you must be so confused." I bristled a little. If there's one thing I don't want, it's pity. "We're here to rescue a nice kid from my camp, Freddy, and Jack's lovely girlfriend."

Jack groaned. "Let's just get going."

Of course, we hadn't taken ten steps before a dark-haired girl burst out from the trees.

**Katy POV**

"Ker, that's not possible," I said, astonished. Rose was in tears, with Jack doing his best to comfort her. (Sickening, I tell you.)

Ker, Gina, and Nick had sent us an Iris-Message from camp – apparently a perk of being a demigod. Throw a drachma in a rainbow and poof, you've got your own personal cell phone. Apparently, Ker had had a dream and this was the soonest they could contact us.

"It's true." Ker spoke softly, taking a shuddery breath every once in awhile. "Oh, gods, Katy, it was awful…."

Nick had an arm around her, and Gina was staring at Rose and Jack, eyes narrowed.

"He's dead," Ker continued. "Freddy Masen is _dead. _I'm Hades's daughter, whether I like it or not – which I don't, just FYI. I can tell these things."

"We, um, haven't told anyone yet," Nick put in, biting his lip. "Not even Penelope, or the Cams."

"Oh, joy," I muttered darkly.

"Something came and took him," Rose sobbed. "It was dark, and freaky, and… oh, gods…."

Adrianna still looked pale and confused. It still bewildered me that she was here at all, but I suppose she was along for the ride now. The part that bothered me was that Demeter cared enough to follow me and Jack across half a country but my own mother didn't even care to send me a birthday cupcake.

"I think it was a hellhound," Rose bubbled on. Yes, the words sounded like bubbles. Just shut up about my verb choice, okay? I was witnessing a tragedy here, so give me a break.

As for the tragedy part. I hadn't known Freddy long, but I felt like I'd just walked into a wall. Jack looked as if he felt similarly. Even Adrianna looked upset, though I think if I discovered my step-sister was part of a world that I had taken for fiction… well, I'd be upset too. And, of course, Demeter's last few words to me in Wichita still floated through my head. Bunny isn't her daughter, okay, I can deal with that. Hellhounds attacking kids and camp, yeah, I can cope. I just need to focus. Focus. On. The problem.

"It wasn't a hellhound!" Ker snarled. "Hades wouldn't do that. Trust me. I've got half of his genetics, here!"

"Who else can summon a hellhound? Your father is to blame here, whether you like it or not!" Rose shrieked back, taking a step towards the IM screen. It looked almost like a glass wall, and I had a feeling that Rose could shatter it.

"Shouldn't you guys go find Apollo now?" Nick interjected. "We can wait, it'll do no good to come back now."

"I don't care," Rose said, her voice heavy.

"I agree," Gina spoke. "Come back, guys, before something grabs someone else."

"There's just one problem," Adrianna said quietly. "If we needed a goddess to get us here, we're going to need a god or goddess to get us back."

"Oh yeah, Gina, that reminds me," said Jack, bleakly. "Your mom says hi."

"See you in a week, Jacky," Gina replied softly. Then the screen went blank and we were left alone with the pine trees and the moon.

**A/N: This chapter is dedicated to my friend Freddy, because:**

**Me: Ohmygod, Freddy, I was just about to post my first chapter to my first fanfic when the site crapped out on me, so I had to start all over again D:**

**Freddy: xD**

**Me: …**

***a few minutes later***

**Me: Freddy I just had a spectacular idea.**

**Freddy: Oooh, share your gift with the world, Fox**

**Me: I'm going to make a character in my fanfic named Freddy**

**Freddy: If he dies I'mma kill you**

**Me: And he's going to DIE**

**Freddy: OMFG WOW**

**Our other friend: Love it Fox**

**This is for you, Freddy. Love, Fox.**


	12. Why Did I Not See This Coming

**A/N: I am outraged. The little deltas don't show up. It's very sad. So they shall be replaced with the MUCH-LESS-GREEK x's. **

**Katy POV**

Mr. D. didn't seem happy about picking us up. He did his freaky voodoo teleportation thingy on us, except we didn't pass out this time, just appeared on Half-Blood Hill overlooking the camp. Gina, Nick, Penelope, and Ker were all hanging around. Jack and Rose popped up about two inches away from Gina, who was making strawberry plants grow out of the ground with her funky plant powers. She screamed.

"Trust me, kids, I had the same result my first time shadow-traveling." Bunny stood a few feet away with Chiron. Two thoughts screamed through my brain.

#1: _Focus, Katy. __This woman is not who she says she is.__ I want you on your guard._

#2: _What daughter of Demeter can shadow-travel? None. Shadow-traveling is too dark. Demeter is all about light. _

"You missed all the excitement, Dionysus," Bunny blathered on while I had a mini-panic attack.

Mr. D. raised a bushy black eyebrow. "Should I be worried?"

"I killed a hellhound," Gina said, excited but obviously trying to be nonchalant. "Ker and I were walking along in the woods after sending you the IM. She got in a few good blows, but it was overall me who took it down." She shifted uncomfortably. "Artemis… um… she offered us both a spot in the Hunters. Ker turned it down immediately – I stand by my claim that she's got a huge crush on Nick." Ker and Nick blushed, but from what I'd seen, if Gina was right, the feeling was rather mutual. Gina shot a peeved look at Jack and Rose before continuing. Jack looked scared out of his pants.

"Anyway," Gina went on, "I turned her down too. I told her I _like _boys and I _like _the people here and I _like _living here." Jack breathed a sigh of relief, but Gina's expression turned steely and he looked scared out of his pants again.

"Let's just get Adrianna settled in," Nick intervened. Jack shot him a reverent _thank you_ look and Penelope nodded.

"I'll take her to Felix," Penelope said, her voice uncharacteristically soft and quiet. She glanced up at me and her voice regained the quick, efficient tone she'd used at dinner the other day. "Felix is the head counselor for Hermes. Unclaimed kids go in the Hermes cabin, but the gods are supposed to claim us all…."

"Take her to Eric," Ker said, with a devilish (no pun intended) grin. "She'll like that."

"She's not a daughter of Aphrodite, Ker," Penelope said, exasperated. "Eric is Felix's brother. He's kinda cute."

"He's amazing is what he is," Ker muttered.

"I don't think that's necessary," Adrianna interrupted. "In my first dream, there were two people. I think the man was Apollo." She shifted uncomfortably.

"How do you know that?" Rose snapped, narrowing her eyes.

"He was a god. I'm sure of it." She still looked uncomfortable, but determined. "He had sunny, curly hair and sky-colored eyes. Same eyes as me. Do you need more proof?" She narrowed her robin-egg blue eyes as if to challenge the group, but it wasn't necessary. We got the point. Apollo was Adrianna's father.

Honestly, it wasn't as shocking as you might think. Adrianna's hair always looks best in sunlight. She loves the sun on her back in the summertime, she's always saying it's not uncomfortable. And her face is just always so full of light. As if someone aims a softly glowing flashlight at her head 24/7. She And if I'm a demigod, there's no reason she shouldn't be, too.

"You said there were two people in your dream," Bunny demanded after a pause. "Who was the other?"

"A woman named Raksha-Reina. She had blond hair like the sun and pale blue eyes. Like if the sky had frozen over, almost. She was so pale she looked like she hadn't seen the light of day in a year. And Aphrodite said she'd been trapped in the Underworld."

I didn't exactly like the mention of my mother, but I was too shocked by Adrianna's other claims. My step-sister gets far-seeing dreams and I don't? Thanks for the powers, Mom. You could have at least made me a little prettier. In the Aphrodite cabin, I look like the ugly freaking duckling, I'm so average. Even Myrtle's eight-year-old sister, Bonnie, is prettier than me. It's now that I decide I hate my mother.

Meanwhile, Bunny looked horrified. She has that look that Finnick Odair got when he heard his pretty little girlfriend screaming (notice how I phrased that to include no spoilers!) – the face white as death, her eyes just about doubled in size. (I'd just like to take a second to point out that that scene was extremely conceited of Finnick – "Oh no no surely it's not her oh but if it's Annie, well then! Wheeeee!" Again, phrased to include no spoilers. And what kind of name is Annie, anyway? For modern times? Yes. A woman named Annie in a group of Jennifer, Jessica, and Sarah is okay. Annie in a group of Madge, Clove, and Rue? Well, that annoys me. But I'm ranting, aren't I?)

"Don't trust her," Bunny snapped immediately. Her voice was jumpy and her eyes were still wild. "She's the Demon Queen. You idiot. Do you know _nothing _of Greek mythology? Who's Hades's wife? Persephone. She's evil. She's sick of the Underworld, and she'll do anything to break out. Don't talk to her, Adrianna. She'll use you to escape."

"Would she?" Gina asked.

"Of course!" Bunny shrieked, though the question had clearly been directed at Jack.

Adrianna said nothing, but narrowed her eyes in obvious suspicion.

**Adrianna POV**

Let me just get this out of the way: I don't trust Bunny one whit. However, I really have no reason to trust Raksha-Reina, and when you're talking to gods, Apollo and Aphrodite are not the best sources of information. So now of course my mind was whirling again, spinning around and around like a freaking carousel.

_Well, _I thought angrily, _I didn't pay for this carnival ride._

I let the overly helpful, sickeningly motherly bronze-haired girl (overachiever alert) and the scary redhead with the thick black sweatshirt (daughter of Hades, for sure) drag me to where two kids, a guy and a girl, were hanging around.

The girl looked around thirteen, with a crown of leaves sitting on in her tree-bark-brown hair. Her skin was the color of chocolate, with blue eyes almost identical to mine peeping out from behind too-thick lashes. The boy looked a lot older, fifteen or sixteen, with ruffled blond hair and dark brown eyes.

_Everyone at this camp is beautiful_, a little voice nagged inside my head. It was true, I guess. _At least the brunette's annoying laugh compensates for her looks. _Again, true. The people here were either genetic experiments, or they were all just really hot jerks.

"Hi, I'm Daphne!" the brunette squeaked. She had a really annoying voice, like a mouse. She gestured to the boy. "This is Eric, son of Hermes."

_He's not all that great, _I thought, recalling the redhead's earlier comments.

The redhead (Ker?) giggled. "Tell us your full name, Daphne."

Daphne scowled and folded her skinny arms. "Daphne Laurel Clio Dawson. Yeah. Two middle names. I was nearly Daphne Laurel Clio Thalia Euterpe, but my mom decided against it last minute." Then she added softly, "I've never met my dad."

"Not many of us have," the maternal brunette – Penelope - said in an attempt to be comforting. I blushed, because, whether I knew he was my father or not, I'd met him, hadn't I?

Ker laughed. "Zeus knows I haven't met mine. And I don't want to."

"You will someday, Ker," Penelope said, her eyes cast heavenward.

"Not if I can help it," Ker muttered darkly, before storming off. Penelope followed her, leaving me with Daphne and Eric.

"C'mon, Adrianna, we're gonna be late for dinner," Daphne said, cheerful and perky.

xxx

At dinner, we didn't do much. I was introduced to a bunch of other Apollo kids and most of the Hunters of Artemis, who sat at the next table over. One of the girls, Thalia, was a daughter of Zeus, like Penelope. (Though she resembled Ker – the scary eyes, though Ker's are black and Thalia's are blue, the punkish sense of style… really, this girl wasn't a daughter of the god of death?) The tall brunette, Callie, bragged about her hellhound kill from earlier a few days ago. There was another, a small blonde, who couldn't have been more than nine or ten. Her name was Angie, I think.

The Apollo kids I met were mostly named for nymphs and muses, like Daphne, or musical artists, like Matt and Hayley (Matt Bellamy and Hayley Williams, anyone? Anyone? Come on!). Devon, John, Cassandra, Troy, et cetera, et cetera. Mostly very Greek names. Troy swore his name was short for Troilus, named for an ancient son of Apollo who died young. Nice omen, huh? Cassandra goes by Andi, oddly (Cassandra, I guess), and Hayley actually hated Paramore (the band whose lead singer she's named for.) In a nutshell, the Apollo table was a load of whack jobs. I fit in perfectly.

But of course, my dinner was boring. Katy's was much more exciting.

**Katy POV**

Ker pulled me aside very quickly during dinner. She rarely sacrificed food to Hades, so she assured me that I would be fine skipping a night for Aphrodite. In a way, I agreed with her. What did I have to thank my mother for?

She dragged me out into the woods, and we marched for a good fifteen minutes before we stopped in a clearing. It was really dark, and so cold for mid-November. I could see my breath, which made it all that much creepier.

"Rose killed Freddy Masen."

**A/N: Shame on all of you who did not see that coming. I can just see Katy's face, can't you? We're getting up to my favorite part of the story. Sorry this took so long.**

**I love children of Apollo. I'm a music-lover myself, and I totally overused Wikipedia to research for these names. Devon is named for the country in England from which the band Muse originated (I think), Matt is the lead singer of Muse, John is named after John Lennon, Cassandra after an old lover of Apollo's, Hayley for Hayley Williams, y'know. Peace out and merry almost-Christmas! My birthday's the twenty-fourth, and I expect presents. **


	13. Snakes who Hug You to Death

**A/N: Sorry the last chapter was so short and yet took so long… Rose tends to get magical powers when I rush, and there's no need to give Rose ANY MORE than she already has. For example: **

""**Can we go now?" Rose tapped her foot impatiently. "I know you'll all be caught up with these… girls." Freddy nodded.**

"**Yes," Bunny said quickly, before Chiron could interject. ****Rose took off at the speed of light****, with Freddy right behind her.**

"**Who are these girls?" I asked Gina quietly, half-afraid of being ridiculed.**

"**The Hunters of Artemis." ****Rose answered****, her voice emanating dislike." **

**Rose, the master of teleportation! ;o**

**Also, you may have noticed that for Katy's thoughts, I don't use italics, but for Adrianna's, I do. This is to illustrate the differences of the two, so Katy's "Oh, God, (Gods, I corrected quickly) I thought. I'm becoming one of them" is no different from Adrianna's "**_**He's not all that great, **_**I thought."**

**Katy POV**

It was like getting hit by a truck.

"That's… that's not…." I stared at Ker, at a loss for words.

"I already told Gina," she said, the words overflowing. "Before we got attacked by the hellhound. I'm so useless. I let Freddy die. I let Freddy Masen die. Camryn's going to gut me, and Nick will rip my head off with his bare hands. I think Camille will take pleasure in burning all my hoodies, and, and, and…" she trailed off.

We stood there for a few minutes, our faces as white as death, when a few new voices worked their ways into the equation.

"Darn, and I really didn't want it to come to this," the first feminine voice said, heavily laced with fake sadness.

"I don't know, Rose," another one replied, light with Bellatrix Johnson's possibly fake cultured accent, which I still couldn't match to a country. Like… French, but heavier. Russian, but lighter, y'know?

"I'm going to rather enjoy this," Bellatrix continued, a cruel little smile darkening her sweet childlike face.

Little Bellatrix, I thought miserably.

"Let's just get it over with," a male voice said. I didn't recognize the speaker, but Ker did.

"Eric!" she exclaimed. She opened her mouth to say more, but a large, long, dark shape coiled itself loosely around her neck, head arched and fangs exposed, ready to kill.

I never did like snakes.

The blond boy Ker called Eric was no doubt the son of Hermes mentioned earlier, and I had to admit he was pretty good-looking, with blondish-brown hair (not unlike Jack's, actually, now that I think of it) and chocolate-colored eyes turned black by the darkness in the forest.

"That's Kaa," Eric explained. "Technically, in the Jungle Book, Kaa isn't poisonous, but poison has always been my favorite weapon. I couldn't just have a snake whose attack is described as his "hug." I mean, really." He flashed a dazzling smile, and it occurred to me that all the evil people were pretty.

"And anyway, poison is more painful, but we need you for later," Rose said with a mean smirk identical to Bellatrix's.

"Me?" I managed to squeak out.

"Unfortunately not. You can die here and no one will even care." I flinched, but Rose took no notice.

"You killed Freddy Masen," I said simply. My voice trembled a little, but I tried to look like I had a gun in my bra or something and had the ability to kill Rose at any time.

"Liar!" Bellatrix screeched. Ker's face sagged, but she kept quiet.

No need to make her go through any more, she mouthed. I nodded in agreement. We would let her believe whatever Rose told her.

She'll come to her senses sometime, I thought.

I hope.

"Before I forget," Eric said cheerfully. "This is Nagini." A pale green shape, much like the one holding Ker in all aspects but color, slipped from around his arm to coil itself, hissing, at my feet.

…And right about there is where we heard footsteps. They went on for a short while, then stopped with the crack of a twig.

"Shit," Eric muttered, while Kaa and Nagini slithered back up his arms to hide in his backpack.

"Language," Rose said loudly. The footsteps continued, and Bunny appeared from the shadows.

"Rose, there are a few people who'd like to speak with you," Bunny snapped. "You guys missed the burning of Freddy's shroud. Apparently Katy and Jack failed to inform most of the camp of his unfortunate death, so his sisters had a rather rude surprise."

Not our job, I thought angrily. The other, less defiant part of my brain was thinking, numbly.

As if she could read my mind, Rose hissed, "tell anyone and you die," in my ear on her way by me.

I followed her, still numb.

**Adrianna POV**

I almost wished I'd nearly died during Freddy's burial shroud burning ceremony thing. Even Gina cried, and her misery put together with the hysterical redheads who, in their defense, did try to make a speech, well… that was… one hell of a first day.

Katy came back furious. She came back just after the ceremony (I really don't know what else to call it. Funeral?) and immediately grabbed Jack and I by the shirt and dragged us to the Poseidon cabin, which was dark and empty. Gina followed, a curious light penetrating the sadness in her spring-y green eyes.

"Rose killed him," Katy spat, once we were safely alone.

No one had to ask who she meant.

"No way," Jack snapped back immediately.

"Seems likely," Gina said at the exact same time. The two turned on each other, and they looked similar to Katy and I when we fought over something.

"Why didn't I go with Artemis when she offered?" Gina snarled. "What's wrong with me?" She seemed to be talking to herself now rather than Jack. "Screw this. I _knew _you'd side with her over me any day. Must I remind you we've been best friends since we were five years old? Your dad saw me dropping you off for kindergarten and freaked out. We have a freaking _empathy link, _for Zeus's sake!" With that, she whirled around (extremely girl-on-tv-ish) and slammed the door.

While Katy explained the rest of her encounter with Bellatrix, Rose, and Eric, I remembered what Aphrodite had said about Gina and smirked.

**Katy POV**

I didn't see Gina until later, when the Hunters were leaving. She looked different. She wore a silver jacket and had a silvery glimmer paling her already pale skin. It made her light blond hair glow like a halo.

"Tell Jack I said bye," she spat. "Not that he'll care." She shrugged, trying to look nonchalant.

"I don't get it," I replied faintly, puzzled, but she was already walking away.

One of her sisters, a petite redhead named Erin, came up and said, "Katy, she became a huntress. With Artemis. Didn't she tell you?"

I shook my head, tears stinging my eyes.

"She won't come back here for fifty years or so. I hope you said your goodbyes." Erin shrugged, looking sympathetic.

I wiped my eyes and hiked the short distance back to the Aphrodite cabin only to come back to a cabin almost as distressed as I was, except for Rose, who cheerily read her book. Myrtle, tears dripping down her cheeks (whether for Freddy or Gina or both, I couldn't tell) hopped up from her bed and gave me a hug.

I barely had time to register the thought, "I knew Myrtle was a good kid" before I fell on the pillow and bawled myself to sleep, for once not caring who heard me.

**A/N: Gina rocks, doesn't she?**


	14. Esa Ventana

**A/N: I can't think of an author's note, except that please forgive errors in my work, especially near the ends of chapters… I usually hurry the end of the chapter and I usually finish them at night, so I'm tired and pressuring myself and yeahh..**

**For example, I just noticed that at the end of chapter nine, I misspelled plane "plain." I feel stupid now, haha.**

**I'm sick D: I just got a new kitten and when I brought her home apparently she had a cold, so now I've got it and I'm joking with my family about wiping out half the world with my new disease "Kitten Flu" aka K1N1. So if updates suddenly stop, it means I'm dead and you're next. **

**Also, I'm horrendously sorry for confusion in the first chapter, Jack's random realization that Katy was a half-blood, Lucy's hesitation around Katy, etc. In the original draft, Jack had been fighting some sort of monster and Katy's being able to sense it proved she was a demigod (which would not actually really happen in PJO.) Eventually I decided it would be too weird for Jack just to say, "Oh yeah, I was fighting a dragon-girl. No biggie!" so I cut that scene. And Adrianna was originally a completely human two-year-old girl. Yeah, I was pretty much just winging it in the beginning… the plot didn't even begin to form in my mind until chapter three or so. Seriously. And the main villain? Forget it. They didn't fully form until… five? Six?**

**Happy reading, and once again – please review, it's very helpful!**

**Katy POV**

That was when the dreams _really _started coming. I was almost satisfied, sort of a ha-ha to Adrianna there.

In the dream I know I was in my own body, because I still felt worn-out and numb and my eyes felt raw. It was raining and I was outside the Poseidon cabin, looking in the window. Jack and the Cams were inside. One of them was facing Jack with her fists clenched and arms taut by her sides. She looked more angry than sad, but the one behind her still had tears running down her cheeks, or maybe that was just the rain.

"Not so nice being left in the dark this time, is it, _Jacky_?" the angry one hissed, taking a step forward.

Jack quickly backed up a few paces. It was kinda funny how the Cams towered over him. They aren't super-tall, maybe five four, but Jack has yet to clear five feet, and the one who looked like she was going to punch him had him beat by about five inches.

"Cam, this isn't-"

"He was our _brother_!" the pissed-off Cam continued. "How dare you leave us in the dark?"

"I was busy," Jack said, his voice weak and defeated.

"Bullshit," the quiet, sad-looking Cam whispered. Both Jack and Angry-Cam looked startled.

"You should have told us," she continued. "We're his sisters, Jack. You didn't like it when we didn't tell you Gina was leaving until she was gone. Now imagine if she were _dead._"

Jack flinched quite visibly, even from my distance. "That's not fair, Cam!"

"I'm Camille," she said quietly, calmly. "Now get lost, before I fry you like a cod, fishboy."

"Where do you expect me to go?"

"You have another grandparent. Get out," the angry one (apparently Camryn) snapped. Then she smirked and said, "Or I'll drown you."

"You can't drown me," he protested.

"Oh, can't I?" she retorted. "Sage is smarter than you, so maybe my powers exceed yours, which are, in case you forgot, _nonexistent._"

Jack hurried out the door and the scene went blurry, and then changed.

I was in a forest. Gina, in gray jeans, a green t-shirt, and the silvery jacket she'd been wearing when she left, stood in front of me.

I opened my mouth to squeal excitedly and hug her, I'd missed her so much, but she ducked behind a tree and motioned for me to be quiet. I stared at her for a second, confused by her actions and surprised by her speed, but then I heard footsteps and voices, so I followed her example by hiding behind the next tree over.

"I don't care what hopeless little cliché puppy-crush you've got on her," Rose's voice snapped. She came into view, walking with a guy in a dark gray sweatshirt, his face obscured by the hood, not to mention the rain, which was thickening.

"They're liars. And forget the bimbos. Do they really think doing everything identically is cute?" she continued. She planted her hands on her hips. "Look. I just want to help you. They're against you. Basically, if we carry out the plan I told you about, you'll live and anyone who wants to kill you will die. So? What do you say?"

Gina turned to me, looking alarmed. We both leaned in, desperate to hear more… but I felt a tap on my shoulder and someone whispering my name (which was really creepy), and the forest faded into blackness.

xxx

"Katy?" the voice whispered. "Katy, Katy, c'mon, wake up. Someone's at the door."

"Tell you what, Myrtle," I grumbled. "Make Rose open it."

"She'll be mad if we wake her up," Maia's voice whimpered.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up. Myrtle and Maia stood in dainty pajamas, shivering and whimpering like a couple of lost kittens.

Too tired and annoyed to really care whether it was the Minotaur or the mailman at the door, I got up, intent on giving the intruder a piece of my mind.

"What do you think you're-" I swung the door open, and there was Jack, soaking wet. I jerked back, afraid at first that Camryn actually _had_ tried to drown him, but then I remembered it was pouring rain outside.

"Hi," he said wearily. "Can I sleep in here tonight?" He held up a sleeping bag.

"We've got a spare bed," called a sleepy voice. Aiko? Jack shuffled over to the empty bed and sat down on it, the look on his face unrecognizable.

"So, kid," Anthony said, swerving into a sitting position in one twist. "Tell us a story, c'mon, as payment for waking us up."

Myrtle's younger sister, Bonnie, jumped up and cheered, "Yeah, c'mon, Jack, pretty please?"

I, as usual, was really confused. When I'm looking for a bedtime story, the last person I look to is a fourteen-year-old boy. I'm pretty sure hobos tell better stories.

Myrtle leaned over and whispered, "Jack's dad is, well, you know, so Jack's got better stories than any kid in camp. He's pretty much the most popular kid in camp, considering that there are a bunch of girls in love with him."

"Okay first of all, he is not the most popular kid in camp," Anthony retorted. "_I _am."

"Secondly," Aiko chimed in, "he hasn't got a "bunch" of girls in love with him."

"One is a bunch!" Maia protested.

"More than you've got, Anthony," Myrtle muttered.

"Shut up! You said you wouldn't tell anyone about the bet!" Anthony snapped.

"Well there you go, Anthony. Nice job," Aiko said sarcastically, clapping her hands in a mock applause.

"She doesn't even _like _him," Anthony continued, ignoring his sister (meaning Aiko, of course.) "Remember when we cornered her at the end of the summer last year?"

"We dragged her back to camp kicking and screaming and threatening the wrath of-" Aiko paused, looking as if she were considering whether to continue or not. Anthony shook his head, so she closed her mouth and smiled happily.

Jack and Rose were looking from Maia and Myrtle to the Lucks and they both looked even more confused than I felt. I made a mental note to pressure Aiko and Anthony into telling me later.

"The Cams kicked me out. End of story. Good night," Jack grumbled. "I went for a walk in the woods and ended up here. To make a long story short, I won't see Gina until I'm sixty years old, and I'm in a _really _bad mood. So _good night._" He rolled over on the bed and Rose snapped off the light, successfully ending the conversation.

I figured if I told him about the dream with Gina, I'd get my ass kicked by Ass-Kicker.

xxx

I woke up the next morning refreshed and ready to go, for once. I hadn't had any dreams after Jack came in and he was still there, fast asleep. I decided not to wake him up, because I'm nice.

"It's a big deal," Penelope was saying when I arrived for breakfast. "Thalia hasn't had contact with camp in _years. _Most people thought she was dead." She seemed excited, and I remembered her telling me about Thalia, the daughter of Zeus who'd joined the Hunters a bajillion years ago.

"Yeah, well, it's nice for _you_," Ker grumbled. She stared at her corn.

"Nothing from Nico di Angelo?" Penelope asked, the words drowned in the sympathy she uses so often.

"Nothing," Ker snapped. "He's probably dead."

"Of course he is, kiddo," an older voice said, almost cheerfully. "Mind if I sit here?"

A woman a little older than my step-mom was holding a tray filled with bacon and potatoes. She had gray streaks in her honey blond hair and dull blue eyes. Jack was just behind her, a puzzled look on his face.

"I'm Gina's replacement," she joked, setting down her tray. Jack's face darkened, which the woman didn't seem to pick up on. She held out a hand to Penelope. "Hiya. I'm a daughter of Apollo. I haven't gone by my real name in a year or so, so you can call me Raksha." Penelope shook her hand, looking confused, and Raksha grinned. There was an awkward pause for a second, until Ker broke it.

"Raksha-Reina!" she burst out suddenly. "You're Raksha-Reina! Adrianna saw you in a dream, didn't she?" The entire table went silent again, except for Raksha.

Raksha grinned again. "Oh, I like you, kid. Nico's little sister, you've gotta be. You've got his eyes. Now, where was I? Oh yes, _that_." She gritted her teeth. "I'll explain later. I promise. She pointed to over where Bunny, Chiron, and Mr. D. were sitting. "Is the woman with the black hair your darling Bunny? She's really running the camp now, isn't she?" Then she muttered under her breath, "Always been a control freak." Then she stood up and raised her voice to normal volume. "I'm going over to talk to her. Bye, kids, nice meeting you!"

The entire table just stared after her, looking confused.

…and so, yeah, that was breakfast. Uneventful, huh?

**Adrianna POV**

The sight of Raksha-Reina shocked the crap out of me. She looked older than she had in my dream, with white streaks in her hair and eyes even more shadowy than I remembered.

Katy seemed to want the whole Rose-Freddy thing slide under the carpet for a little while, probably because of Jack's reaction and Gina's reaction to his reaction.

_For heaven's sake,_ I thought. _All he said was two words. Get over it, Gina._

Surprisingly, considering the big change of Raksha-Reina's arrival, camp life became dull. I called my mom to tell her what was going on, and she was surprisingly well-informed.

"Katy's father and I married to protect the two of you," she explained, which shocked me, but I hadn't known Katy's dad long enough to be offended. Then her voice became excited. "Did you meet your father yet?"

Of course, I lied to that question, because I couldn't bring myself to explain the whole dream mojo.

Katy woke up every morning looking as if she'd just seen a ghost, and Jack stayed in the Aphrodite cabin. The Athena cabin thought this was all pretty funny, and without Gina there to kick their asses, they weren't afraid to taunt Jack. Constantly.

I walked into the Big House one day with Jack to find Raksha-Reina on the phone. She was wearing a Red Sox cap. There was a pad of paper and a laptop on the desk in front of her. She didn't notice me at first.

"Okay, Katie, this is, like, not cool. Seriously. Chocolate bunnies, Katie, chocolate bunnies!" There was a pause. "Well then let me talk to Travis, at least…." There was another pause, and she grinned.

"Travis, bebe! How's Connor?" Her face fell, and she scowled. "What do you _mean _your brother is "no longer with us?" Hang on a sec, can I get back to you later on this? 'Kay. Peace out. I want wedding pictures of you two, this whole idea is _that _ridiculous. Adios!" She hung up the phone, tilted her face toward the sky, and screamed, "Nice track record, Hermes!"

Grumbling and still not noticing me, she crossed out something on the pad of paper and clicked something on the laptop.

"What do you mean _Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage_?" she wailed. "I didn't mean it, Hermes, I swear!" Then she looked over and saw me and Jack.

"Oh. Hi. Adrianna, right? And… um…" she squinted at Jack.

"Jack Chase," he mumbled, blushing.

Raksha cocked her head, looking puzzled, but then her face bloomed in realization and she grinned.

"You're Annabeth's kid? No way. Impossible. You'd better be Percy's boy, or all the half-bloods from my day and age are going to throw a collective hissy fit."

Jack looked as if he didn't know how to respond to that (heaven knows I didn't) but Raksha seemed to figure it out for herself. Her face lit up, and she looked like a kid on Christmas morning.

"You know, kid, after nineteen years in the Underworld and one on Olympus, I don't think I've talked to a living, breathing, human mortal for a long time. You've gotta have Riptide, kid. Come on. If you don't have Riptide I will call your father right now, bring him here, and throw him out that window. _Esa ventana._" She jerked her head toward a nearby window.

"That wasn't Greek, you know," Jack said.

"I know. It was Spanish for 'that window.' I took Spanish for a year or so before, you know, Persephone threw me into the Underworld and all."

"But I thought Bunny said _you _were Persephone," I interrupted, feeling completely lost.

Raksha clenched her teeth. "Bunny says a lot of things." Then her face lit up again and she turned to Jack. "Come on, pretty please? I haven't seen Riptide up close since, like… forever. Literally."

"It's in the Aphrodite cabin," Jack said sheepishly. "I've been staying there the past few days, and I don't keep it in pen form. You can't take the cap off a pen in the heat of battle, you know? It's a multi-step process."

Raksha's expression went blank and she raised her eyebrows. "Kid. It's just a pen."

xxx

Raksha dragged us to the Aphrodite cabin, naming the other cabins as we passed. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Ares, Athena, Apollo (me!), Artemis, and Hephaestus. Raksha looked as if she'd walked this way a thousand times before, and overall seemed ecstatic to be in camp.

When we finally got to the Aphrodite cabin, Katy was sitting in there brushing her hair without a care in the world, evidently ignoring the fact that a guy had just _died, _due to a murder by her friend's girlfriend and her half-sister, and that a character from my dreams had just come to life. It was actually kinda weird, considering Katy is always the paranoid one while I lay back and say, "So what if you forgot your math homework? Just chill, Katy," and my mom shoots me a glare. I assumed she was freaking out under the thick skin we all know as Katy. Seriously, my sister is the most fake person I've ever met.

Jack took a gleaming bronze sword out from under the bed where he'd been sleeping for the past week or so.

Katy's eyes got big and she put down her hairbrush. "Ooooh, is that Ass-Kicker?"

Raksha's head dropped into her hands and she groaned. "You're killing me here, kid. You renamed the most famous sword in half-blood history _Ass-Kicker_?"

**A/N: Hermes apparently didn't like my joke about Connor and Luke and the track record, because my Internet is down now…**

**Don't you just love Raksha-Reina? Some of her scenes have been planned ever since she met Adrianna, though the phone call to Katie and Travis (who are now married) is rather recent. Man, I've been waiting to do that scene xD It's really too bad I can't make them have kids (due to Jack's uniqueness) or Raksha's reaction would have been even funnier. Trust me, all the humor in this story was way funnier in my head.**

**Today (December 24) is my birthday, so happy birthday to me and merry Christmas to the rest of you.**

**Come on, Hermes, give me my Internet back, pretty please?**

**Okay, no, seriously, Hermes, it's been like seven hours and it's my birthday, cut me some slack, here, please D:**

**Yeah, happy holidays to you too, Hermes D:**


	15. Cliche Puppy Crush

**A/N: Yeah, the last chapter was kind of just an attempted-humor filler chapter, I'm trying to prepare for revealing a bunch of stuff that I so don't know how to reveal…**

**Also, pardon my language in the beginning of this chapter, because I looked back at it and felt bad for violating your innocent eyes, but… now I feel bad for not being able to explain why I didn't change it, if I felt so bad. Now I feel stupid… hmm.**

**I had this dream a few nights ago that Percy and I were in District Twelve from the Hunger Games, and somewhere around there he realized that he was in love with Ripper, a supposedly young woman (in my head she's a young woman, at least) who sells alcohol in the black market from the Hunger Games. It wasn't until I woke up, marveled over how good the couple was together, and then remembered, "What about Annabeth?" that I realized I'd made it up D: **

**Also, please forgive anything you see written in this chapter in present tense. I've told the entire story up to this point in past tense but I just finished reading a book where the whole thing is present tense, and I have a bad habit of writing similarly to what I've read most recently. **

**It's snowing outside! Snow makes me happy :D**

**Katy POV**

I had the same dream over and over again for at least a week – Rose and Gina and the guy and I in the forest. What Rose said changed slightly, but it was the same basic message – she was trying to get the guy on the dark side. The guy never said anything, so Gina and I were going insane, not knowing who he was, not being able to do anything.

And then that all changed.

Before I start telling you about what changed and go insane (again), I'd just like to say that in the very back of my brain, Gina's reaction registered as "purely hilarious."

Don't tell her I said that.

"Well, Gina's a bitch. She doesn't care about you, or anyone else, for that matter," Rose was saying.

Gina looked curious, but not overly pissed off like I would have been. Actually, her reaction was calmer than the guy's, because he burst out at Rose:

"Okay, first of all, Rose? She's not a bitch. She might want to kill me, but she's not a bitch. She's also not twisted, in love with me, or stupid. Your clearly don't know her. Second of all, I do _not _have a cliché puppy crush on her, and even if I did, it would not be a _cliché_."

Rose scowled and opened her mouth to reply, but I turned to Gina, whose face was turning approximately seven different colors. She looked pissed off and desperate and sad and betrayed and regretful all in one look, and that's a lot for one face to handle. She was frozen, but not for long before she recovered and punched a tree.

I leaned against a nearby tree (not the one she punched, thankfully, because being a huntress has made her a heck of a lot stronger) and just sat there, frozen with shock and self-disappointment. I really should've figured he'd be the first person she'd go to for an ally.

Please forgive my over-dramatizing it, but the voice we'd heard had been Jack's.

xxx

I later felt lazy for sleeping for a few hours after the dream came and went, because Gina wasted no time. I woke up that morning at six or so to someone banging at the door and a slightly too vigorous shaking of my shoulder.

It was Rose who had been shaking me (obviously) and Jack was halfway to the door.

Gina's reaction to Jack answering Cabin Ten's door was half priceless, half painful to watch. Because, of course, it was Gina and my step-sister at the door. Evidently Gina had filled Adrianna in, because Adrianna didn't miss a beat.

Gina and Jack just stood there, staring at each other for a minute, and I could almost feel Maia and Myrtle twitching with anticipation. Aiko and Anthony exchanged worried glances.

What is _up _with them? I wondered absently. While I thought about that, Gina seemed to be recovering from her initial shock, and I heard a loud _crack-snap_-ish sound. (Snap Crackle Pop… just sayin'.)

When I looked up, one of Jack's cheeks was red, Gina looked startled and was staring at her right palm, and Adrianna was on the ground holding her stomach laughing like a madwoman. Except for Adrianna's bizarre cackling, the Aphrodite cabin was silent.

"Did she just do what I think she did?" Myrtle asked.

"I think she just smacked him, my friend," Anthony said smugly. "I've got twenty bucks coming to me soon."

"Ten," Aiko corrected. "You said you'd share with me, remember?"

"Whatever you did," Maia snapped, turning on Jack. "It's going to cost you."

"I'm still very confused on the whole bet aspect. You four have been hanging around the Hermes boys too much," Rose muttered, rubbing her forehead. She looked so exhausted that I could almost believe she hadn't actually killed Freddy and that we could all go back to normal, but then I remembered that she was tired because she'd been brainwashing Jack in the middle of the night for a week.

"We can't tell you what the bet's about until we have proof someone's already won. Anthony and Aiko very nearly won, but Gina actually saved our butts by leaving," Myrtle explained.

"I don't particularly regret it," Gina finally spoke. "Smacking you, I mean. You deserved it." Her eyes finally left Jack and she glared coolly at Rose. "You're next, you rotten flower."

"Bring it on," Rose said, her voice as cold as ice.

"May I speak to you in private?" Gina said through her teeth to Jack. Before he could reply, she grabbed his wrist and dragged him outside. Adrianna closed the door behind them.

"I'm only going out there if I hear him screaming for mercy," she explained. Then she raised his voice so Jack and Gina could hear her outside. "By the way, it _so totally would be _a cliché puppy crush."

The voices outside shut up. As soon as it was out of her mouth, Adrianna's eyes widened and she seemed to realize that it was the wrong thing to say, because now, Rose knew _exactly _how much we knew.

xxx

The five of us – me, Ker, Jack, Gina, and Adrianna – met up in the Hades cabin, Cabin Thirteen, since Ker was the only one of us without any cabinmates.

"I can't believe you quoted her, Adrianna," Gina muttered.

"I can't believe you slapped the love of your life," Adrianna retorted.

Gina turned red. "What makes you think I'd like _him_? He's doomed us all. Luck is in his blood, and Rose knows that, and she is going to _use _him."

Jack blushed, but said nothing (for his own sake, I bet), and Ker piped up, "Well _I _can't believe that you dragged me into this.

"Speaking of dragging," Adrianna said, her eyes glittering with what could only be a bad idea, "I'll be right back."

"This can't be good," I grumbled. Jack nodded.

The Hades cabin was dark and creepy, pretty much decorated to fit Ker's needs. Ker flicked a switch and the entire cabin was illuminated in bright light (simply to be defiant of her heritage, she explained.) The walls were covered with pictures of skulls and beds lined the wall. Ker went over and sat on the farthest bed from the door and said, "I'm going to wait for Adrianna."

There was silence for a couple of minutes, before Jack said, "So why'd you come back, Gina?"

"I had to check on you, since you can't handle seduction from the evil people," Gina snapped. I glanced at Ker, whose eyebrows were raised.

"Seduction's a bit of a strong word," Ker said quietly, but Jack and Gina ignored her.

"Well then why'd you leave in the first place?" he snapped back.

Gina sat up. "Because," she growled. "I am so incredibly _sick _and _tired _of that… that… _cliché puppy crush _you've got on her!"

"Am I so completely incompetent of being original that everything I do has to be labeled a cliché?"

"Yes!"

That marked the beginning of the awkward silence.

Adrianna showed up ten minutes later, dragging Raksha-Reina in by the wrist. She plopped down happily on the bed next to the one Ker sat on.

"I don't quite see why I'm here," Raksha muttered. I swear, she looked older every time I saw her, but her eyes were regaining a little bit of life.

"I've been thinking about it for a long time. Callie, one of the huntresses, bragged about her hellhound kill. You spent twenty years in the-"

"Nineteen," Raksha corrected softly. "I spent nineteen years in the Underworld. Hades got sick of me after that and dumped me on Olympus."

"Okay," Adrianna continued briskly. "So, nineteen. You spent nineteen years in the Underworld. There was a hellhound attack on camp, not to mention Rose claiming that a hellhound had killed that, um, guy… um…"

"Freddy," Ker murmured.

"Freddy. Right. So, Hades – or Ker, maybe – was framed for killing Freddy. Gina, would you please explain what you saw when the hellhound first attacked camp?" Adrianna turned to Gina, looking smug.

"The hellhound targeted Jack and Bellatrix, who were defending the unarmed kids," Gina said dutifully.

"No." Jack shook his head. "It didn't target the unarmed kids. It targeted _Ker._"

"Right," Adrianna said, growing more and more excited by the minute. "And why would a hellhound attack a daughter of Hades?"

Ker turned white, her black eyes widening in fear.

"Maybe because she totally killed the whole death aspect of the cabin?" Raksha grumbled. "I liked it better dead."

"So you've found the million dollar question," Jack said casually, as if he were saying she'd just found money for ice cream.

"Now who's going to answer it?" Gina finished. Her voice wasn't nearly as casual as his, and her green eyes were nearly as wide as Ker's.

"Damn it," a voice groaned from the door. "You discovered my _master plan._ This is all your fault, Bunny."

"_Me?_" Raksha protested. "I barely told them anything! Just that, you know, you were pure evil and stuff."

Adrianna's confidence and smugness vanished instantly. "I'm confused…."

"Yeah, good news, kiddo," Raksha said, glaring at Bunny (or not? I'm totally lost) and reaching a hand out to me. "You've got my bow, don't you, Katy? Well, what're you waiting for? Give it here. I've been waiting a long time for this."

**A/N: Well, yeah, there's fifteen… I'd love to gush on about the previous chapter, but that's the most confusing cliffhanger I've ever written, and I don't want to elaborate for you, so tough luck :D**

**Everything shall be explained, don't worry.**

**Eesh, sorry that chapter was so short. I didn't realize how puny it was until I copied and pasted it onto the new document, so I can upload it.**


	16. In Other Words, She's Exactly Like Hera

**A/N: Sorry the end of 15 was so confusing. I knew it was confusing, but I didn't realize how lost people would be until my friend Freddy begged me to tell him what was going on. However, I'm going to try to make it perfectly clear in this chapter, so just keep reading. (This means you, Fredster.)**

**Also, I'm annoyed because I've recently been reading The Hunger Games trilogy and I originally had a humor scene in mind where Adrianna got Myrtle, Maia, and Aiko hooked and shortly after they fell in love with one of the characters, Adrianna dropped a bomb and said he died in the third book. Then Katy turned to her and whispered, "Have you told them you haven't actually read Mockingjay yet and you're making that up?" to which Adrianna replies with a cheerful no. Unfortunately, I got Mockingjay (the third book) for Christmas and I realized… he does actually die, so it feels more like a spoiler than a joke. Which REALLY sucks, because I was in love with him too D: **

**I'd just like to point out that on the Camp Half-Blood wikia, on Percy's page in the relationships section, all his relationship's descriptions with gods begin with: "Zeus has mixed feelings for his nephew Percy" "Hades also has mixed feelings about Percy" "The god of war despises Percy" "Athena disapproves of…" "Hera neither likes nor dislikes…" "Percy has been on Mr. D's bad side…" until we get to "Hephaestus is grateful to Percy…" and from there, there's nowhere really to go but up. I just thought that was funny. Also, when I read further into his page, I realized that his character's age in the movie had hopped up from 12 to 17, and my immediate response, to quote, was, "Are you kidding me? That's ridiculous. That's horrifying. I'm gonna ****punch**** you." But my laptop is already having trouble and I really don't need ANOTHER broken computer, so I spared this computer's life :) And just FYI, Annabeth's brunetteness in the movie is horrifying, too.**

**Also, I am also annoyed (I'm annoyed a lot) because I had already planned most of the scene near the end when the main romance of the story finally comes to light (much to my satisfaction) and the characters present start cheering like monkeys. Unfortunately, it just occurred to me that there was a death shortly before said romance comes to light, and most of the characters present were close to said dead character and I just think it would seem heartless to have them so happy so soon after said person dies, so now I'm stumped…**

**Adrianna POV**

To recap: A woman from my dreams showed up to camp and whined about Persephone for awhile. Then, Gina and Katy kept having this dream where Rose tried to get Jack over on "her side." I'm not exactly sure when these "sides" were formed. Jack and Gina apparently have an empathy link but it's really not benefiting either of them in any way, shape, or form. As it turns out, Raksha-Reina has a friend named Morpheus, god of dreams or sleep or something, and she'd been having him send the dreams to Katy and Gina in an attempt to get Gina back to camp, which would explain why Jack has no idea why Gina slapped him. So Gina came back, I blew our cover, and we scheduled a meeting of us five (Katy, Ker, Gina, Jack, and I) but I brought Raksha-Reina along for the ride because Aphrodite told me she had this whole thing figured out. So we got busted by the woman formerly known as Bunny, who called _Raksha _Bunny which was really confusing, and now Raksha-Reina/Bunny had Katy's/her bow pointed at Bunny/whatever-her-name-is.

"Okay, this is a little bit of a long story, kids," Raksha murmured. "You kids know about Hera and her problem with Zeus's kids." Jack, Gina, Ker, and Katy nodded hesitantly, but I was still kind of lost.

Bunny raised her eyebrows. "I am _nothing _like Hera."

"Of course not," Raksha replied, stretching the bow a bit farther and setting the arrow in place. Then she turned to us again and whispered, "Okay, so, Persephone has the same problem. In other words, she's exactly like Hera. She escaped from the Underworld… somehow – I think I'm involved in that part – and put me in her place. Of course, I'm not nearly as whiney as Persephone, so Hades found me out right away when I lasted an hour without turning one of my step-children into a dandelion." She glared at Bunny/whoever.

"You are _this _close to Tartarus, Bunny," the old Bunny snapped, holding her thumb and index finger less than an inch apart.

"To explain in the quickest way I can," Raksha began, "My name is Bunny Parker. I'm thirty-two. I'm a daughter of Apollo. That over there is Persephone, and there is no doubt in my mind that she can kill us any time she wants."

"Us?" Gina exclaimed. "When did we get dragged into this?"

"Honestly, I'm not quite sure," Bunny/Persephone said. "I think it was Rose's idea."

Jack looked shocked, and Gina looked smug. Katy elbowed Jack in the ribs.

"Essentially," Raksha/Bunny continued, ignoring us five kids. "Persephone's got a mission to kill all of Hades's children. Quite frankly, I wouldn't put it past her to have a hand in Bianca di Angelo's death. I mean really, what did Bianca die for? Nothing. Nothing at all." She narrowed her eyes and stretched the bow again.

"Miniature statues of Hades do not just _appear _in junkyards, Bun-bun," Persephone said with an eye roll.

"Exactly my point," Raksha/Bunny (I'm still really confused, here) said, smirking. "Jack, I want you to tell your dad that next time you see him. Tell him Bunny was right all along and that he was wrong because he is just sooooo smart like that."

"Um… okay." Jack still looked dazed and startled. Poor Jack.

"I'm really confused," Katy said suddenly.

"Let me explain it to you this way, Katy," Persephone said clearly. "I am Persephone, goddess of the Underworld. Your friend here"-she gestured to Raksha/Bunny-"is the real Bunny. I kidnapped her when she was twelve and hanging around with her almost-dead friend, who seemed to enjoy the dead more than the living – his loss." Raksha narrowed her eyes again at this point, but Persephone continued, "If my husband insists on having children on mortal women whose brains and lifespans equal those of flies, well then fine. Ker is the first one to have survived past the age of twelve, which really kind of sucks for me, because killing them before they hit thirteen was kind of a pattern for me." Her eyes flashed. I noticed that there was something funny about her eyes – they were kind of fuzzed out from reality, not exactly abnormal but if you tried to figure out what color they were you couldn't come up with a name. As if their coloration was being hidden by powerful magic.

There was a brief pause before Raksha shot her arrow into the wall, just next to Persephone's head.

"Missed me," the goddess said smugly.

"I wasn't aiming for you," Raksha replied through clenched teeth. "That was a warning shot. Leave us alone, and we'll leave you alone." Persephone looked hesitant. No one else heard it, but Raksha muttered, "For now," under her breath.

"I promised Rose she could kill the girl," Persephone said with a shrug. Ker, Gina, and Katy tensed up simultaneously, evidently not knowing who she was talking about. Jack's shoulders slumped, and he looked utterly defeated.

"Told you," Katy whispered. Jack's eyes narrowed and flicked from Gina (who he'd been staring at since Persephone's comment about Rose killing a vague "the girl") to glare at Katy.

Persephone seemed to be considering Bunny/Raksha's proposition. "Okay. Fine. Goodbye," she said in a quick, sharp tone, as if she wanted to get the words out as fast as possible.

She spun on her heel and walked out of the cabin, but the door shut and locked with a _click _behind her.

**Katy POV**

"Since when do these doors lock?" Ker exclaimed in a panicky voice, jiggling the door handle.

"Since forever," Bunny replied coolly, having been the only one still sitting casually on a bed. "We have more important things to deal with. Firstly, how are we going to defeat Persephone?"

"According to Aphrodite," Adrianna muttered, "it's your job to figure that out."

"I've actually been thinking about that," Bunny continued. I'd taken to calling her Bunny, because it made sense. The free plane tickets, probably from Zeus, Persephone's father. She claimed to be a daughter of Demeter. Bunny had been muttering curses to Persephone and Bunny since arriving at camp. How Persephone had always said "For Hades's sake" more often than "for Zeus's sake," as was common among the campers. The shadow traveling Persephone had mentioned – Hades was her husband, so why not? And then there was the rodent thing from Adrianna's dream.

"Rabbits aren't rodents," I said, interrupting Bunny.

"They aren't?" She scratched her head.

"Nope."

"Damn, and you'd think I would know that already," she sighed. "Me being a bunny and all."

"You've actually been thinking about that…?" Adrianna said in an attempt to get the conversation moving again. She kept quivering, and I recalled that she hated being locked in spaces. Especially one as gloomy as the Hades cabin. Except for her usual sarcasm and twisted sense of humor, she's the complete anti-Hades.

"Well actually I've only thought about the obvious. Persephone is so many crossovers of so many different aspects and powers that it's going to be tough to beat her."

"Well," Gina said absently, obviously still panicking about the locked door and the whole Rose wanting to kill one of us girls here (Adrianna and I later agreed that we had our money on Gina, and I could tell that Jack and Gina were thinking similar thoughts.) "We've got the master on crossovers here, so why don't you ask him?"

"Sure, go ahead and throw me under the bus, Gina," Jack grumbled. "Like what kind of aspects?"

"Life. Death. Nature, sky, darkness. With the Ares problem, Percy could beat him because, quite frankly, Ares is a moron and brains is his opposite. But there's no real opposite to what Persephone is, because she's _everything._" She exhaled in a half sigh, half huff. "Thank the gods she's not as smart as Kronos." She shuddered. "I'd be dead meat against that guy."

"No, really?" Jack muttered sarcastically.

"Yes, because we all thought you could challenge the lord of time." Despite the whole Rose problem and the dream thingy, Jack and Gina were just as complementary together as ever without seeming to notice it. I glanced at Adrianna and saw the smug look on her face.

**A/N: Meh, I just felt like ending there… I sure as heck hope I didn't forget anything… hehe that would suck…**

**Persephone's little nudging (aka shoving forcefully, especially for poor Nico) Bianca and Nico along to the pit of death is completely made up by me and I have serious doubt that it even crossed Rick Riordan's mind.**

**Also I feel the need to let you know (because I am self-conscious and I want to look ethical – whatever that means, haha) that Raksha/Bunny had no romantic connection to Nico di Angelo whatsoever despite the fact that it was implied, because originally there was something there but then I decided, "Screw this, they were twelve…"**

**Whee… I'm tired.**

**Oh yeah and sorry the A/N at the beginning was so long.**


	17. We Crossed the World While It's Asleep

**Katy POV**

"Okay, we have a problem, ladies… and Jack," Bunny said, pacing the floor of the Hades cabin. We were all sitting on Ker's bed, and the looks on our faces ranged from skeptically expectant (Adrianna) to confused (Ker) to insulted (Jack) to intense humor at the expense of our best friend (Not mentioning names… cough cough Gina.)

"We need a humane way to wipe out Persephone's army," Bunny mumbled. She was still pacing, and she had taken on that absent way of speaking that Gina had been using recently, due to the fact that, you know, she thought her best friend's girlfriend was going to kill her. No biggie.

Jack raised his hand but Bunny whipped around to face him so fast that her hair created a helicopter effect. "Do not even suggest bombs. It's quick, it's effective, it's powerful, and I have no doubt in my mind that even the youngest Hephaestus kid could make a buttload of good bombs, but the very last thing we need is another Beckendorf incident. Gina would play the part of Silena Beauregard mourning for poor young you except that we'd have to throw your dad into the equation and he would _kill me, _and I'll have you know, Jack Chase, that I have zero desire to go back to the Underworld."

"What do you mean I'd play the part of Silena Beauregard?" Gina protested indignantly.

"Ask Adrianna. It was her idea." I didn't quite know how this could possibly be Adrianna's idea, since she was supposed to know even less than I did about demigod history.

Gina turned on Adrianna, who gave a cheeky little wave.

"Now," Bunny continued, "since I'm a real analogy person, who gets to play the part of Clarisse and fight the drakon? What, no volunteers?" Then her eyes got that absent, faraway look they had when she was pacing

"Jack? I think I just solved your problem with the Athena cabin," she said, a small smile beginning to creep onto her face.

**Adrianna POV**

Jack and Gina looked surprised at Bunny's claim.

Bunny smirked and said, "Ah, but I don't feel like telling you yet. Let's just say that living with Travis and Connor for four years did, in fact, do me some good." She chuckled darkly and I could sense that this was going to be a bad idea.

Bunny had presented this problem to me on the way from the Big House to the Hades cabin, and told me the story of twenty-or-so years ago when Percy Jackson blew up some cruise ship with Greek fire. It hadn't ended well.

"What if Persephone doesn't have an army?" Katy asked.

Bunny smiled and nodded. "Possible. Ideal, actually. So let's move onto issue number two. My favorite subject."

"Which is…?" Really, how much do I have to beg for an elaboration?

"Myself," she replied, grinning. "I'm probably confusing you poor kids to death. Question and answer time."

I raised my hand, but didn't wait to be called on. After all, Ra- ah, Bunny, had explained to me on the way that she still felt twelve years old, so there was no way I was letting her treat me like a little kid.

"How did you get here?"

"My – our – dad drives a very nice sports car called the sun chariot. It's very fast and I now know how to drive a car."

Gina pursed her lips and said carefully, "You said you spent a year on Olympus. Which god would you say you, ah… had the best relationship with?"

"Apollo or Hades. Hades likes me regardless – which is hard to do, just FYI – since I pretty much did his dirty work for nineteen years – taking care of Cerberus, shutting Charon up, et cetera." She brightened. "And I like Dionysus, he's nice too, and-"

"I don't think anyone has ever said that before," Jack muttered. He and Gina looked stunned. Ker's face was blank and she didn't seem to be paying attention, because her dark eyes were absent and unfocused.

"Well I have. And Ariadne's so nice that I have one more reason to want to kill Minos."

"Why do you want to kill Minos?" Jack interrupted.

Bunny's face tightened and her jaw clenched. "Minos is a judge of the dead, and considering his past with Nico di Angelo…" she shrugged, assuming we got it.

"But Nico's a hero," Jack said, looking shocked.

"Doesn't matter who you are," Bunny said with another defeated shrug. "Matters who you know. Let's move along."

Ker spoke up next, which surprised us all. "Why is Freddy Masen dead?"

The cabin was silent, partly because of what Ker said and partly because she spoke up at all. Bunny looked startled.

"Freddy Masen? Red-headed? Green eyes? Masen with an e?"

Jack and Katy nodded, but Ker just stared into her lap.

Bunny tipped her head back and laughed. "I'm sorry, this topic isn't really funny, but I met his mom. She was in my sixth grade English class – actually, with a little girl named Lucy Powers, and I think I managed to get Nico in there for a couple of weeks, but you could tell by the look of him that he was nervous being around so many living people for so long every day, so he disappeared within a month."

"Holy crap," I muttered, feeling a jolt of shock. "You knew my mom for that long?"

"Little Lucy? 'Course I did. Actually, it's a shame – Nico hated it so much, he wanted to leave, but he'd promised me he'd stay 'till Christmas. So Lucy and Emma came up with ways to get him expelled, but he actually made it 'till Christmas and never did throw that chair at the teacher." She giggled. "That would've been funny."

"You didn't answer my question," Ker said through clenched teeth. "Why. Is. He. Dead."

"Because Rose killed him," Katy muttered darkly.

"You know, this is easy for you, Katy," Ker exploded. "You've only known these people for a few days, so it's easy for you to talk about killing them; just wiping them out, one bomb and it's done. Poof. But these are my _friends. _Freddy wasn't just a face in the crowd – he was my _friend. _The Cams are right – you left them in the dark, Jack. Freddy's shroud-burning-thing was a complete surprise to them. 'Oh, hi, Camryn, you have to come make a speech and burn your brother's shroud. What, you didn't know? He died. A hellhound killed him.' She kicked Nick so hard I was afraid he wasn't gonna get back up afterwards and I'd have to drag him back to his cabin." Katy opened her mouth to reply, but Ker blew up again. "Maia and Rose have been friends for as long as I can remember. How do you think she'll feel about all this? Not to mention Daphne and Eric. They've been best friends for years." She shook her head fiercely and stood up. "I'm outta here." She stomped toward the door, jiggled the handle, and shrieked in fury.

Bunny, her face sad, fished around in the pockets of her jeans. After a second, she pulled out a key. "Here," she said, tossing it to Ker.

"How did you get this?" Ker snarled, her voice venomous.

"Chiron and Mr. D lock the Hermes cabin door at night so they won't wake up with blue hair and green lips. Well let me tell you, _I _was tired of waking up with blue hair and green lips, so one of the Hephaestus kids – who'd spent an ample time of the Hermes cabin himself, so was able to empathize with me – helped me forge a key. Turns out all the cabins have the same locks. It's very handy."

Ker unlocked the cabin door and held it wide open. "Get out."

**Katy POV**

"I can't believe she yelled at me," I muttered.

Gina smiled. "Trust me, if you knew Ker, you'd believe it. She's very protective of her friends. Ker and Freddy were kind of like me and Jack."

"Except that they aren't in love with each other," Adrianna whispered. "Ow," she complained, rubbing the spot on her arm where Gina elbowed her.

"I'm bored," Bunny grumbled. Then her face lit up and her voice brightened. "Hey, you wanna take a trip to Chiron and Mr. D with me?"

"I'm going to the strawberry fields. You coming, Jack?" Gina said. Jack nodded hesitantly and the two ran off, leaving me and Adrianna with Bunny.

"I'm going to take a nap," Adrianna mumbled faintly, and jogged off in the direction of Cabin Seven.

"Guess it's just you and me, kid," Bunny said with a twinkle in her eye. "Let's see if nineteen years of living with my bad-tempered old great-uncle – haha, that makes you sound old, Hades – have made me any better at yelling at people."

xxx

"Nineteen years of living with the bad-tempered old dead man haven't improved your skill of yelling at people one bit," Mr. D protested. Bunny had given he and Chiron a pretty harsh tongue-lashing, which was rather repetitive but fierce. It involved a lot of fist-clenching and folding-of-the-arms.

"I seem to remember her 'skill of yelling at people' being rather good to begin with," Chiron muttered.

"I can't believe you, Dionysus," Bunny snapped. "You let the old hag take my place for twenty years. Did you notice when I spent my sweet sixteen with my great-uncle and my dead friends? No. Did you notice when I legally became an adult and once again spent a birthday with my great-uncle and dead friends? Nope. Oh, and what about when I turned thirty? No way. You know, they say a woman never gets prettier after the age of thirty. I've missed the best years of my life! I spent them with Luke Castellan, who I do not hold in a high regard. I don't care if he's a freaking hero, he tried to kill me! I spent my thirteenth birthday with a guy who tried to _kill me_! Percy Jackson gets to grow up and get married and have a kid, but what do I get? Hell! Literally! My life was full of _hell_!"

"Your life was full of Elysium," Mr. D grumbled when she paused to take a breath.

"I want an appointment with Olympus."

"I can't get you that, Bunny."

"Sure you can. You're a god, stupid!"

Mr. D's purple eyes flickered with flames. Bunny flinched and shook her head as if trying to get a thought out of her brain.

"Sweet bajeezus, Dionysus, I thought I told you to stop scaring the kids," she grumbled.

"'Did you notice when I legally became an adult?'" Mr. D mocked.

"Okay, I'll admit it," Bunny said, sounding defeated. Then her eyes got a mischievous look in them and she sneered. "I might be a legal adult, but you know what? _I've never had a glass of wine._"

Ooooh, she went there.

Mr. D opened his mouth to snap back a reply but Persephone strolled in, casual as ever. Chiron and Mr. D regarded her as so normal; it took a second to remember that they didn't know she was, like, pure evil and stuff.

"Okay, screw this, I'm tired of toying with you," she said, looking bored. "Twitchy's right. I, _queen of the Underworld, _kidnapped her and-"

"Twitchy?" Bunny protested.

"Yeah, your nose twitches. See? Watch, watch!"

Bunny narrowed her eyes, but after a while… her nose flinched just the teeniest bit. She sighed. "Okay, you got me. But I thought I was 'Miss _Pahk tha Cah_.'"

"Your Boston accent faded when you were about twenty. The name just doesn't make sense anymore." Persephone rolled her eyes. "Anyway, as I was saying, I kidnapped Bunny and stuck her down in the Underworld – I never intended for her to take my place, just stay there – and I came up here. For Hades's sake, Bunny, what did you do to those kids to piss them off?"

"I don't think they liked it when I started singing Paramore when Morpheus put New York to sleep. What? There's a line about crossing the world while it's asleep. Well, that's what we did, isn't it? I think Mike Yew wanted to shoot me full of arrows. Poor Michael. They never did find him, did they?"

Chiron (Captain Pony!) shook his head and Bunny's face deflated.

"Tell them your plan, your majesty, please," she said sarcastically.

"Oh, you tell them, Bun-bun. You've figured it out, haven't you?"

"I think I have. You tell them, she needs to hear it from you."

Behind Persephone, I could see three very distinct pairs of eyes peeping in the window – two green, one blue. I barely had time to register them in my brain before Persephone rolled out her plan, very calmly and coolly, for everyone to know:

"My husband is going to stop having children whether he likes it or not. I'm going to kill his children, and then" – a cruel little smirk, identical to Rose's or Bellatrix's when they tried to kill me and Ker, crept up onto her face – "and then, I'll kill the rest of the demigods. I'm tired of this silly little camp, and I'm going to bring it to an end."

**A/N: Yeah, I'm beginning to realize that all my author's notes are pointless. I don't really like that ending, but I didn't like any of the sarcastic little comments I had Katy add in after… the first one was a (minor) swear and Katy's not the cusser, that's Adrianna's job… the second one also had a (minor) bad word in it but it was totally ripped off from Zoey Redbird from the House of Night series… and then the third was stolen from one of Jacob Black's POV chapter titles in Breaking Dawn… those titles were the most enjoyable thing in the book… (those and his blond jokes, and I totally stole all the blond jokes too…) oh but I totally wanted to light Caius on fire and dance on his ashes… the Twilight saga sucked, but I totally would recommend it to any girls which is really the most tragic part about it…**

**No, seriously, don't read those books, they're poison to the genre of vamp fic. Go get yourselves some Night World or Vladimir Tod.**

**I'm going to shut up now.**


	18. For Lack of a Better Title, Get Him!

**A/N: I just need to note that the title to the last chapter was taken from "Looking Up" by Paramore, and if I owned Paramore or even just that song, I'd have died and gone straight to heaven. **

**Adrianna POV**

"Holy shit," Rose whispered.

You see, Rose had come to find Gina in the strawberry fields, and so they went for a walk to discuss their long-time hate for each other and they picked me up along the way; apparently Persephone had sent Rose to get Gina to eavesdrop on the Big House so she (Gina) would be terrified of Persephone's evil plot. Fortunately for us, Persephone had not accounted for Katy's presence, or Rose's, or mine. So the three of us spied on Persephone, out of pure curiosity, and well, you know what we heard.

No one had any time to do anything else before Gina, her face red with fury, grabbed Rose's arm and dragged her away from the window. She stopped near the dining pavilion, which was empty, it being late afternoon. Rose's face was as cold and her eyes reflected no feeling whatsoever. As usual. Gina probably bought her emotionless act, but I had lived with Katy for nearly my entire life, so I wasn't falling for this trick again.

You see, whenever Katy's upset, or scared, she'll hide it all under sarcasm and witty, annoyed jokes. Occasionally she hides everything under a book thrown at my head. Her aim is getting good, too, which kind of sucks for me.

But anyway, Gina was _pissed. _Boiling, bubbling, red-faced, rotting mad. That's my new phrase. Rotting mad. It makes no sense, but it sounds cool, doesn't it?

Like I was saying, because I have a tendency to get off topic, Gina was pretty mad. She hadn't let go of Rose's wrist, and Rose was starting to look like it _hurt. _

"I know why you're so mad at me," she said, with barely a wobble in her voice. She cleared her throat and said clearly, "You're mad because I dragged the fishboy into this."

Gina looked surprised. "Well, yeah… that's exactly… right."

Rose smiled nervously. "Well then, this is awkward, huh?"

"No, not really."

"You're not much of an 'awkward' person, are you, Gina?"

Gina's eyes narrowed and fractured into green pieces of ice. "You don't know me, Hamilton, and you don't know Jack, either, so hands off."

"The entire Aphrodite cabin thinks you two are charming together."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, you're funny."

By this time Katy was walking towards us in a brisk, business-like manner, her steps quick and urgent.

"I'll give you ten seconds to step away from her or I'm calling in our secret weapon," she snapped at Rose. I glanced at Katy and saw the alarm in her eyes, and I knew she was remembering Persephone's super-ominous promise to Rose that she could kill some ominous "girl."

"Way ahead of you, Katy," Gina growled. She didn't really have to look behind her to know that Jack was jogging towards us, casual and happy and all that jazz. It's one of my favorite things about Jack. He's so blissfully oblivious of all our girl problems.

"Damn you and your empathy link with that boy," Rose muttered.

"You two have to call in a boy as your secret weapon? How sexist is that?" I protested.

"He could be a frigging monkey and Gina would still call him in," Rose chuckled.

"Okay, time to be quiet now, flower," Gina hissed.

"You calling me 'flower' is _extremely _ironic, Gina."

"Has it really registered with any of you what she actually said?" Katy screamed, her blue eyes burning with anger.

"What who said? What? What'd I miss?" Jack begged, finally arriving. (Jeez, you'd think he was some male model or something… slow-mo jog.) "You guys get all the fun."

"Shut up, fishboy," Gina flared. Jack looked hurt. You'd think he'd be proud of that nickname, him being one-quarter fishboy and all.

"Persephone wants to kill us all," Katy said softly.

"Impossible."

"I'm going to smack the _shit _out of you, Jack!" Gina half-screamed.

"You already did," Rose murmured.

"Impossible! Everything is impossible! You're always telling me everything's impossible! Well listen to this, asshole! You know what your mother said when Percy claimed Luke tried to kill him? You know what she said? You remember. She said she could believe that, didn't she? She believed _your father, _who she'd known for a few weeks, over Supremely Heroic Luke Castellan, who she'd known for, like, _five years. _And you know why I know that? Because I've listened to you, and I've listened to your stories, and I've known you for, what? Eight years? Nine?" Gina had gone far past the fine line between making sense and not.

"Gina, calm down," Rose said in a surprisingly soothing voice. Her eyes were as big as quarters, at least. Jack's face mirrored hers – just the utter shock at Gina's outburst. It was kind of comical, actually. I'd been in Gina and Jack's history class all year, and Gina was always so calm and quiet, and unbeatably smart. So to see her explode like this was like watching some guy get attacked by a sweet little bunny.

"I will not calm down! This is your fault!"

Katy was clearly panicking, so she did the Katy thing and… jetted off. Rose glanced at me, and then _she _did the Katy thing and dashed after Katy.

I hate Aphrodite kids.

**Katy POV**

That night at dinner, I'd actually sat with the Aphrodite table. I told Myrtle it was because I simply adored trying to braid Anthony's hair without him noticing, and it was, in my defense, partly that. The more prominent reason was that I would not have been surprised if trees shot up out of the ground and encased the Big Three table in an organic, air-tight cell, suffocating everyone inside. Poor, innocent, Penelope, Nick, Ker, Camryn, and Camille. Rest in peace.

Unfortunately, the whole Aphrodite table was agitated, too, except for Rose and Bonnie.

"If you think you're in the lead, Aiko, you need to read more romance novels," Myrtle snarled.

"Yeah," Maia chimed in. "Learn what's passionate and what's not."

"Yes. Murder – the ultimate crime of passion," Anthony muttered.

All forks hit plates. Aiko froze, spaghetti still half-in her mouth, and turned to her brother. Her brown eyes were huge, just like everyone else's. Even Rose, who'd been mostly detached from the constant "bet" talking, was staring at Anthony with her eyebrows raised.

"You _bastard,_" Maia said incredulously.

"Do you have a problem with my parentage?" Anthony's attempt to be indifferent was a failure due to his realization that he'd said something very, very wrong.

"That's a Twilight quote!" Myrtle screamed. "Get him!"

Maia, Myrtle, and Aiko leapt onto Anthony in an attempt to get him out of his seat and blind him with their perfect fingernails and/or break all his limbs and his nose, while Anthony screamed about it being Aiko's fault and Edward Cullen being an idiot.

"Those books are an insult to romance fiction!" Aiko shrieked. Anthony stopped blaming it on her and started begging for mercy.

Rose was watching this whole thing and smiling like a proud mother hen.

"There's something wrong with a sixteen year old boy who's read the Twilight saga, don't you think, Katy?" she said, chuckling.

"Probably," I replied.

Rose laughed. "I love Aphrodite kids."

And just for one, blissful, second, I could almost, just almost, believe that my life was as normal as it was ever going to get.

And then I remembered Freddy Masen, and the blissful peace came to the ground in a crash landing.

**A/N: For like, the eighth time, I'm very very sorry for the short chapter, and I'm sorry it's so bad and so filler. Everything I write is filler.**

**Start weaving Jack's shroud. He's doomed.**

**I'd just like to note that I'm NOT a Twilight nerd, I've never been in love with Edward Cullen, and I think Bella has NO PERSONALITY. I hate her. But I do, fortunately, have a very, very good memory, and I have a tendency to spout quotes from time to time. So yeah, that one's from Eclipse, when Bella threatened to kill Jacob. **


	19. Sugar Cakes

**Katy POV**

I woke up that night, after a dreamless sleep, to nails digging into my skin.

"What time is it, Myrtle," I mumbled, burying my face in the pillow.

"It's not Myrtle, stupid," a voice (what is it with these voices in my life?) hissed. "It's me. Get up. It took me like, ten minutes to wake you up."

"Can't you just kill me here, Rose?"

"No. Get up."

Rose dragged me out of bed and brought me, half-groggy, out to the woods, near the place where she, Eric, and Bellatrix attacked me. The reminder made me nervous.

"What the hell took you so long?" Bellatrix snapped, rubbing her hands along her arms to keep them warm. Her amber eyes glittered in the darkness, giving off the impression of a jaguar. "I'm freezing!"

I recoiled immediately. "Why is she out here?"

Bellatrix cupped her hands together and blew into them. "We're forming a plan. Eric's not into it 'cause he's batshit crazy. So you, me, and Rose – we're forming a plan."

"Bella, what time is it?" Rose asked.

The little witch checked her watch. "One-thirty. We've got about an hour before Jack wakes up, and probably Gina, too." Sure enough, her old accent had faded. Fake. She glanced up at me and realized I was requiring an explanation. "Jack will wake up just out of habit since Rose thinks it's efficient to drag our new recruit out of bed every night and seeing as how he is inconveniently staying with you two, he'll see you're not in bed and all that crap. Gina will wake up because she's probably got an alarm set so she can follow Jack. Basically, if we take too long we're all in deep shit."

She'd formed quite the vocabulary there, hadn't she?

"I'm confused," I said. "Why are we forming a plan? You're the bad guys."

"Nothing is ever as fuc-" Bellatrix started to answer my question, but Rose elbowed her in the ribs. She rubbed her side and started over, "Nothing is ever as simple as you think it is."

Rose cleared her throat. "We were the bad guys, but… the bad guys are sorry."

"Yeah, unfortunately, we're not the only bad guys," Bellatrix muttered, shivering.

"I told you to bring a coat!" Rose growled. "And you sound like a daughter of Hades with that attitude."

"Maybe I'm Bianca di Angelo reborn."

"That is irrelevant. Plan time. Bella and I will stay in our current position. Okay?"

Bellatrix and I nodded, and Rose started to write the plan down on a pad of paper.

"Don't write it down, you idiot!" Bellatrix snapped. She reached for the paper, but Rose pulled away.

"I'll dispose of it afterward," she said coolly, then continued as if nothing had ever happened. "We'll lead Bunny and Persephone along until the final confrontation. Then Bellatrix and I will unleash the very extents of our powers and attack Persephone. That'll distract her so much she'll lose the final battle to whoever she's fighting. If all goes to plan, it'll be you bringing her down."

"But we can't kill her, she's immortal. She's a goddess." Bunny and I had already had this conversation, so I was kind of annoyed.

"We can sure as hell try!" Bellatrix cheered. Then her face darkened and she grumbled, "and then we'll all grow up, get old, die, and go straight to goddamned Tartarus."

Rose rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah, um, that's the problem… Hades would get kinda… mad."

"So here's the dealio, Pierce," Bellatrix said, taking command. "You're spreading the word to the lovebirds and your step-sister, but _only _the lovebirds and your sister."

"Bella, stop it!" Rose elbowed the younger girl again. "This whole camp needs to stop harping on that. They're not lovebirds."

"Bull_shit, _Rose! If they're not deeply in love, then my hair is blond and my eyes are green." She held up a deep black curl to prove it.

Rose raised her eyes heavenward, but didn't argue. "Katy, please tell _Jack, Gina, Ker, and Adrianna _that we're secretly on your side. And make sure they don't tell Bunny. She wants Persephone dead, and her anger is clouding her judgment. I just… don't trust her to handle this appropriately."

"This is crap," Bellatrix snapped. "I'm freezing, so I'm leaving. You don't need me here."

"You can go." Rose nodded calmly. Bellatrix stalked off, shivering with every step. As soon as the sound of her footsteps faded off, Rose slumped against a tree and tears leaked out of her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Katy," she blubbered. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know she wanted to kill anyone besides Ker. I'm sorry I dragged Jack and Bellatrix into this; Eric kind of weaseled his own way in. And I swear, Katy, I'm sorry I killed Freddy." She wrapped her arms around me and sobbed into my shoulder.

I, of course, was taken completely off-guard. This was Rose, the strong and powerful! Plus, I wasn't 100% sure whether or not she deserved forgiveness, what with the whole killing-Freddy thing.

"It's okay, Rose," I murmured, rubbing her back like my step-mom used to do when I'd collapse on her like this. I felt a jolt of pain when I remembered that I had never had a real mom, and I realized that Rose had never had a mom, either. I was lucky to have Lucy. She was as much a mother as I could imagine, but my half-siblings hadn't had that kind of thing. Maybe that was why half-bloods grew up to be so freaky – we'd only had one side of the parental spectrum.

"I didn't tell Bella anything about Freddy, I'm too much of a coward," she continued.

"I think we should try and keep her on the hellhound theory," I said awkwardly. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her."

Rose nodded tearily. "Can we go back to bed now?"

I smiled and led her back to the cabin, secretly thrilled. I'd been wanting this all to be a dream for so long – Rose as an opponent kind of freaked me out. So here was exactly the ally I'd been looking for.

**Adrianna POV**

We scheduled another meeting, just me, Gina, Katy, and Ker, so Katy could explain what had occurred the night before.

"They're on our side, but we can't tell anyone else, not even Bunny," she said firmly. Then she paused thoughtfully. "Oh, except Jack. Gina, you're responsible for telling Jack."

Gina grinned. "He'll be ecstatic."

At that moment, Bunny burst in.

"Hoorah! Girls, I got myself an audience with Olympus!"

"What's that mean?" Katy asked.

"It means I get to go to Olympus and present my case. I might just be getting my own life back. And, oh yeah, there's the topic of you half-bloods to deal with," she teased, giggly and high off her success.

"One of us has died already," Ker said, a cold edge in her voice. "I don't want another."

"I don't either, sugar-cakes," Bunny replied in a more serious tone than before.

"Did you seriously just call a daughter of Hades 'sugar-cakes?'" Gina asked, fighting a smile.

"Yes, yes I did," Bunny laughed. "And I've done it before, too. I spent nearly twenty years with Bianca di Angelo and I'm sure I called her sugar-cakes at least once. I'm just so happy! You have no idea what it's like to go by a fake name for two decades and then finally have people realize who you are."

"Personally," Ker murmured, "I think if my name was _Bunny, _I would've stuck with Demon Queen."

Bunny giggled again, and for once, I think it crossed my mind that _hell, we were going to win this thing!_

**A/N: Okay, not much happened in that chapter but the first scene was kind of long and I totally ran out of ideas at the end…**

**The next few chapters might take awhile because I thought I had way more time to wrap this up than I actually do, and I used to say "the author knows everything"… then I started writing and I'm like "the author knows nothing"… so yeah, forget Katy having to figure out how to bring down a goddess… **_**I **_**have to figure out how to bring down a goddess.**

**Oh yeah, and sorry for Bellatrix's pottymouth… I like writing her dialogue though…**


	20. Ulterior Motives and Rare Tarantulas

**A/N: Okay… I have to type slowly since I just painted my nails and they are now green and purple… that's the third nail-painting of the week.**

**I've begun to set myself deadlines for finishing chapters. I think I've already blown this one.**

**I'd just like to reveal: There will most likely be a second book in the series centering on the second Great Prophecy. I've also been considering about a third book, but I'm leaning towards ending it at two. Depends on how it goes. Freddy's mad because I told him he couldn't have any spoilers for book 2… unfortunately, he guessed something big anyway which kind of annoyed me. **

**Thanks so much to all the readers and reviewers, you guys are, like, my life.**

**Oh yeah, and actually, I solved half of my genetics problem with Jack. He got his blue eyes from Sally Jackson. So what Bunny is about to imply is untrue because that would be really, really weird. Like, **_**really, really **_**weird.**

**Katy POV**

"I'm still not getting why you've got your mom's last name," Bunny told Jack, chewing her dinner carefully.

"It's funny you didn't mention this while Gina was present," Penelope murmured, poking at her chicken. "Gina thinks this is all very, very funny."

"You know who you remind me of? I just realized it," Bunny said, still speaking to Jack. "You look a hell of a lot like Luke Castellan. You've got the whole blue eyes thing going on."

Penelope dropped her head into her hands and Nick shook his head. Jack and Ker looked shocked.

"You just made this conversation way more awkward than it had to be," the daughter of Zeus groaned.

Bunny seemed to realize what she'd just implied and she coughed loudly. "So, um, where are the Masen twins?"

"Camille will be a second," Camryn snarled icily, plopping her tray down and beginning to eat.

"Holy mother of God," Penelope whispered, when Camille finally arrived at the dining pavilion. (I just love that word. Pavilion. Pavilion. It's so fun to say, don't you think?) She'd been so shocked crapless that she'd reverted back to old habits, since, well, none of us said "oh my gods" or "holy Zeus" before we came to camp.

Camille looked so different that even I almost didn't recognize her.

"Do you have a problem?" Camille snapped.

"You're… you're…," Jack stuttered. Jack shocked. There's a new one.

"Camille, what in the name of all that is good and holy happened to your hair?" Penelope shrieked, her hand covering her mouth.

"It's a different color, moron." Sure enough, her hair was dyed a pale, pale blond, even lighter than Gina's.

"I can actually tell them apart now...," Nick muttered. He looked at Ker. "Am I dreaming?" Ker shook her head. She was the only one without her mouth hanging open in shock.

"I'm tired of this," Camille growled. "I'm tired of people referring to me as Cam. I'm Camille. Cam isn't even a legitimate nickname for Camille. I will now be responding to Camille and Camille only. But don't worry, it's only temporary, and I can't get it permanent until I talk to my mom, which will be Christmas break."

Bunny smirked. "Hey, now that we're all here. Jack, how would you like to get yourself killed?"

"Does this involve the Athena cabin revenge plot?" Ker asked.

"Yes, yes it does."

Penelope, Ker, and Jack leaned in.

"Okay, well, you see, kiddies, I knew Annabeth Chase for a long time…."

**Adrianna POV**

Gina, me, and my brother Troy were sitting outside the Apollo cabin when Penelope, the overachieving daughter of Zeus, came up with a curly-haired boy who looked a lot like Troy (teehee. That rhymed) came to join us.

"Adrianna, have you met Felix?" Penelope said cheerily. "He's a son of Hermes and Troy's half-brother."

I whipped my head around to face Troy. "You never told me you had a brother."

"I have, like, six. Which one do you want to hear about, dear sister?" I smiled involuntary when he called me his sister. Katy and I had grown up together, but we'd never been all that sisterly. And I'd always wanted an older brother.

"Felix, stupid."

"My mom had a kid with Apollo. Then a year later she had a kid with Hermes. Both were boys, and both grew up to be very, very sexy young men. Happy?"

I started to demand more explanation, not because I needed it, but because it's the duty of an annoying sister to never let her brother be right. As a mixed blessing, the hysteria started across from us, at the Athena cabin.

"Oh my gods, whoever's causing that is going to get their butt kicked," Gina chuckled darkly. Felix joined her, and Penelope, surprisingly, laughed maniacally.

"Why?" I asked, totally clueless.

"Because," Penelope managed to choke out. "I've got ten bucks on that being Sage screaming."

"Gods, that girl was so asking for it," Troy muttered.

"Isn't she, like, your ex-girlfriend or something like that?" Gina spluttered.

"Something like that."

"Ah, young love," Felix teased.

"Watch it, kid, I'll trip you on your way to lunch."

"Like you'd have the guts," Penelope snickered, winding down from her hysterical laughter.

"So if you guys hate her so much, why are you going to kick, ah," I paused, scrambling to gather the correct grammar, "Why are you going to kick the butts of whoever is causing that?"

Gina erupted into giggles again. "Because _I _wanted to do that!"

"You did just fine at the last meeting for cabin counselors," Troy said appreciatively.

Felix grinned. "That move with the sage plant was so incredibly Felix-approved."

"Even if it was, like, so motivated by your undying lo- wait, what was it I'm supposed to say?" Penelope whistled innocently.

"Ulterior motives." Gina snapped her fingers and a strand of hay poofed in from thin air. She stuck it in her mouth, very cowboy-ish.

"Even if it was motivated by your ulterior motives," Penelope said smoothly.

Meanwhile, the Athena kids were pouring out of the cabin like cockroaches. Bunny, Jack, and Katy popped out of the bushes nearby.

Bunny cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Would anyone like to purchase several rare South American tarantulas?"

xxx

"You know, Bunny…," Mr. D muttered, "I knew you weren't the brightest. But I never knew you were a complete and total full-blown moron."

"You didn't punish the Stolls for their poisoned t-shirt trick!" Bunny protested. Bunny, Katy, and Jack had been "summoned" to the Big House. Of course, Gina and I followed, because we're cool like that. Chiron and Persephone stood behind Mr. D. Persephone looked excited.

"Hermes's boys did not have a meeting with Olympus in twenty minutes that it took me a _lot _of work to get. You'd better hope you're not looking for Athena's support."

Bunny grinned and her eyes lit up. "Well then by all means, let's go, eh?"

"Did you hear anything I just said?" the god of wine demanded.

Bunny placed her hands on the table and leaned in towards the god, her eyes narrowed. "Dionysus, you and I look young and old enough – respectively – for me to me your _mother. _Please understand my point of view, my lord – I'm not feeling terribly compelled to fall to your feet and kiss them."

"I could drive you nuts, child, so watch your mouth."

Bunny smiled. "But you won't do that, will you, because you're nice, aren't you?"

"Zap her, zap her!" Persephone goaded.

Mr. D narrowed his eyes. "I spent a lot of time working to get you this audience with Olympus, Bunny. I'll let you go, and then I'll 'zap' you afterwards. Okay?"

Bunny grinned again and bounced up and down. "Thanks, Mr. D. You won't regret this, I promise."

"I believe I already am," he muttered.

xxx

"Okay," Bunny announced. "Gina, Adrianna, Katy, Ker, and Jack – please go get ready to depart for Olympus. Mr. D's gonna help us out by using his super-awesome teleporting stuff, so we've got approximately twenty minutes to prepare. I advise bringing weapons, at least."

Katy and Ker set off immediately, but Gina turned to Jack and said, "Hey, you're headed towards Three, right? So, ah, want to walk with me?" She looked awkward, but considering that there was a possibility that we might not all come out of Olympus alive, I could see why she wanted to take a walk with him. Not to mention he had the cheat sheet for hero survival training.

"Um, actually," Jack replied, blushing, "I have to be somewhere. Sorry, Gina." He scurried off.

"Rejected," Bunny muttered.

Gina ignored her, and looked after her friend with a worried look on her face.

**A/N: Okay, yes, that chapter was short. Like, **_**really **_**short. However, we're nearing the end, and I don't want to end a chapter in the middle of the big confrontation scene.**

**Once again, thanks for reading and those who have reviewed, thanks! It means so much to me :)**

**Hoorah! Twenty chapters!**


	21. Let's Roll

**A/N: Thank you to my lovely Harry Potter nerd, Toilet/Klug, and all the other non-PJO-readers that have stuck with me through twenty chapters. (This means you, Freddy.) Of course, thank you to my other readers and faithful reviewers: your support is the only reason this story ever continued.**

**Oh yeah haha, I was on the site I use for checking what names mean, and I was on "Most Popular Names of 1997." Jack and Chase are consecutive, #76 and 77, respectively. **

**Also very sorry for the delay, I had a snow day Wednesday but my power was out. **

**Katy POV**

"I swear I'm forgetting something," Gina mumbled. She'd recently acquired a shiny, brand-new bow-and-arrow ensemble, so she had no need for her Gemini. Bunny had never gotten around to giving back my bow, but in her defense, it was hers and Persephone allowed me to use it, not Bunny.

"Your swords?"

"Already got them." She jiggled the hilt attached to her belt loop. "I figure they'll come in handy."

Bunny burst into the Aphrodite cabin. "Katy, I've got you a new bow. Is that okay? Adrianna's sister Devon had one made for her and it just finished last night, so I bought it off her. And trust me, those Apollo kids won't stand for a less-than-perfect bow." She handed me a pale bow and a dark leather quiver with more bronze arrows than I would need.

"How do you even know this will escalate to fighting?" I asked, taking the weapon. "Thank you."

"You actually might offend the gods by bringing weapons," Gina added.

"Oh, I figure this is all like the Volturi, 'cause I'm an analogy person like that. Poseidon is Marcus, Hades is Aro, and Zeus is Caius." Bunny smiled in a prim way that made me know she knew she was in trouble if Zeus understood what she'd just said. (Allow me to explain: Caius is, like… sadistic doesn't even begin to describe it. Like, pointlessly sadistic. Aro and Marcus are okay, but Caius is just way out there.)

"Risky, risky girl," Ker murmured.

"C'mon, guys, what am I forgetting?" Gina wailed. "I will never be comfortable enough to meet my mom unless I figure this out."

"Oh, you're just panicking, Gina," Bunny scoffed.

"Where are you guys going?" Maia's voice asked softly. She, Anthony, Aiko, and Myrtle had managed to creep up on us while we were talking.

"I don't care where you're going," Aiko interjected. "But if the lovebirds are involved in some sort of life-threatening situation, we have to be there."

"They are," Adrianna replied, at the risk of having Gina shoot her a look.

"Well then we four are coming," Myrtle said, folding her arms.

"Are you kidding?" Gina laughed. "You Aphrodite kids cry at the break of a nail. This, as you said, is a life-threatening situation. What would you do if we left Olympus with one of you in a shroud?"

"We'll be fine, and we'll stay out of the way," Maia retorted.

"Let them go," Bunny agreed, staring at the four. "I've met a few very heroic Aphrodite children, and anyway, Katy's going, isn't she?" She looked Anthony and Aiko over again, and muttered, "Full-blood demigod siblings are becoming increasingly common, aren't they?"

"Well there's me and Bonnie, the Lucks, the Masens, Felix and Troy, is that it?" Myrtle glanced at Maia for assistance.

"Don't look at me, I don't know."

"Let's go already!" Anthony said impatiently.

"I am forgetting something!" Gina shrieked, frustrated. She started to check her pockets.

"Your mother!" Bunny screamed back, throwing up her hands.

"My mother is a goddess!"

"You're not supposed to take it literally! Everyone knows that expression! Did you grow up in a stable?"

"YES!"

"It's true," Anthony said with his trademark smirk. "When she was little, she found camp on her own. She hid out in the stables for a week, until Jack found her."

"How romantic," Gina muttered bitterly. She grabbed her little green duffel bag. "Let's roll."

xxx

"I like Olympus," Adrianna said happily. There were tall, Greek (obviously) columns leading up to the ceiling, which was covered with constellations. It was pretty, and as a daughter of Aphrodite, I was feeling pretty comfortable among all this beauty. Who would've known? You get used to things like this.

"Oh, kid, this is only the throne room," Bunny chuckled. "Wait 'till you see the city."

Adrianna's eyes sparkled. I remembered when we were kids and Lucy would take us out for walks around the city, and her eyes would glitter like that. Adrianna was completely at home in big, intimidating places.

Twelve thrones were arranged in a U-ish-shape, except we were inside the U. The pretty fire in the center roared happily, and a little girl with brown hair tended it carefully.

"Everything is so big!" Maia gasped. She and my other siblings looked like six-year-olds who had just been set free in a toy store.

"Including the people," Aiko said, sounding a little bit uneasy.

She was right. The twelve Olympian gods sat primly on their respective thrones. I was able to figure out who some of them were. Apollo, for instance. He shared a lot of facial features with Adrianna, and Demeter was the same with Gina. I could even see a little bit of Jack in Athena, which I'm sure he would find hilarious.

The goddess who stood out most was, well… gorgeous. Gina spotted her and poked Myrtle. Myrtle then poked Maia, who poked Aiko, who jabbed Anthony (take note in the change of verbs there.) She had chocolate-brown hair like the Lucks and the same blue eyes as… me.

She immediately squealed like a little girl when she saw our group. "Aw, Bun-bun, you didn't have to bring all of them! Where are Bonnie and Rose?"

"Oh, you'll see," Gina muttered, through gritted teeth. She was ignored.

"Oh, Aphrodite, how old is little Bonnie now? Eight or nine? Like you'd ever let it off my conscience if she died."

Aphrodite smiled and nodded. She was even more beautiful when she smiled.

"Mom," Maia breathed. Even Anthony's usual coolness was broken, and he looked pleasantly stunned. The rest of us grinned, and I felt happiness blossom in my chest (wow, that sounded sappy, but… I'll go with it) only slightly tainted by anger.

"Maia! I haven't seen you in person since you were two months old. You've grown up to be so beautiful! Anthony, Aiko, you two have got your father's looks. He always was a good-looking one. Myrtle, dear, you're so pretty. Kind of, like, in a different way. You're an excellent example of my theory that there are many kinds of beauty." Her beaming smile faded when she turned to me. "Katy, Don's girl, aren't you? You're so pretty, love. I just wish your dad had stuck around to see you grow up."

"Yeah, but he didn't," Adrianna spat. I'd always been a little bit surprised by her rage at my dad leaving. I felt sort of… indifferent. I had Lucy, and that was enough, and anyway, I was pretty cool, so his loss.

"Oh, Adrianna, it's nice to see you again… GINA!" Oddly, the goddess seemed most animated by Gina's appearance. She clapped her hands excitedly. "Oh, it was so romantic when you quit the Hunters!"

"Speak for yourself," Artemis muttered. "I found it rather unpleasant."

"It actually was rather romantic," Demeter admitted. Gina looked like she wanted to reply, but held her tongue. Instead she shot Aphrodite a mutinous look.

"And don't even get me started on…"

"Aphrodite, enough," a black-haired woman interrupted, exasperated. Gina's eyes fixed on her, and stayed there. There was a murderous glimmer in them, and that's how I determined that the black-haired woman between Demeter and Artemis was the goddess of wisdom, Athena.

"Can we get this show on the road?" Bunny called to the general public.

"Sure, but please allow me to introduce our special guests," the guy sitting next to Apollo sneered. He had scars covering his cheeks, and greasy black hair.

Ares, I thought.

"Oh, Ares," Bunny said uneasily. "It's, ah, nice to see you again." Her tone made it obvious that Ares wasn't her favorite god.

"Stop ruining my moment, Bunny," an all-too familiar voice rang out.

"Oh Zeus," Ker whispered.

"What is she doing here?" Bunny hissed. Adrianna shrugged, her eyes fixed on Persephone. The gods looked everything from uncaring to cheerful to guilty, and Apollo's eyes were very conveniently refusing to meet his eldest daughter's.

Persephone and her little gang stepped out from behind Zeus's throne.

"Eric stayed home, to keep an eye on things," Persephone admitted, the threat in her words thinly veiled. The rest of her group followed her, and she gestured to the third member. "So, I found a replacement." Rose looked panicked, and Bellatrix gave a sour wave.

"Oh, son of a…," Gina muttered.

Am I the only one getting really, really sick of having to give Jack all the dramatic scenes?

**A/N: Okay, no, seriously, Jack, you're stealing Katy's thunder… **

**Anyway. This is most likely the second or third to last chapter, and then I can start on book two, whee! **

**We might just be saying goodbye to Adrianna. The rest of the story will be mostly or even all Katy POV, since she's supposed to be the main character, and Jack, Gina, Adrianna, Bunny, etc. have been stealing all the heroic parts. And anyway, Adrianna figured out some time ago what I did with my craving for romance, while Katy remains blissfully ignorant, and we're getting to the part where that romance **_**matters… **_

**Are you as excited as I am?**


	22. Pick Your Poison, P

**A/N: If anyone has any ideas for what genre I should put this story in, or what the new summary should be, please feel free to leave a review or PM me… I'm not very good at those things :P**

**A few weeks ago, I vowed I would never see the Lightning Thief movie because of Percy's age difference and Annabeth's sudden hair-color change. Then, a few days ago, I saw it. There's a Persephone quote from the movie in here, see if you can pick it out, it's kind of obvious… I just thought it would be funny and ironic to have Bunny and Persephone on the same page for a bit. I'm also shocked at how much the movie-Persephone is like Bunny, and oh yeah, there's a Maria di Angelo quote (more of a reference, actually) too... she's, like, Bunny's idol.**

**Katy POV**

"I'm going to kill him," Gina whispered fiercely.

"I think he's going to drop dead out of fright before you get the chance," Adrianna murmured. She was right. Poor Jack was staring at Gina, with a terrified look that seemed to say, _Gina, you wouldn't… would you?_ I could only imagine what sorts of words she was throwing at him.

"Finally, someone is bringing the empathy link into play!" Anthony cheered.

"I was wondering when that would prove to be useful," I mused.

"Damn it," Bunny snapped. "You two have an empathy link? Well, hell! That means we can't kill him."

"It also means they can't kill her," Adrianna said hopefully.

Bunny shook her head. "Persephone would force Jack to take one for the team. Either of you interested in a permanent vegetative state?"

"No," Gina replied softly. Her anger had subsided, and her shoulders slumped. She seemed dejected.

Bunny carefully applied lip gloss and when she was done, said, "well, then, let's get this party started."

"Actually," Persephone objected. "I think you should speak to the gods first. Then we can settle this like idiot men, yes?" She laughed, and for once, Bunny joined her.

The blond daughter of Apollo cleared her throat to begin her little speech. "Okay. Hello, Olympus! You guys probably remember me as Raksha-Reina."

"We never bought that," Zeus interrupted. The woman next to him – probably Hera – nodded in agreement.

"Okay, then, you guys remember me as Bunny Parker. Please allow me to tell you my story, and then I'll rant for a little bit, and then I'm winging it.

"When I was seven years old, I woke up at Camp Half-Blood. I didn't remember anything about my past, but that never bothered me much. I met a nice girl named Annabeth Chase and later I made friends with Nico di Angelo, but you all know that already. So let me fast-forward a little bit. When I was twelve, I was a come-er and a go-er, kind of like Nico, except I stayed at camp a hell of a lot more. Anyway, I snuck after Nico one day because I was bored and everyone was all hyped up about His Great Heroicness." Her face flushed. "I've always been jealous of Percy Jackson. He steals the limelight every single time.

"Persephone managed to separate Nico and I somewhere near Montana. I'm still not sure why he was there, just exploring, maybe. She killed Nico and grabbed me, then stuffed me in her annoying hellhole of a kingdom and ran off to camp to take my place." She paused. "I'm still not sure how you believed it, Mr. D. Her hair remains black, and mine has always been blond."

Mr. D looked exasperated. "Bunny, when you were eleven years old you asked me if you could get your nose pierced. I figured it wasn't a stretch to assume you'd dyed your hair."

Bunny smiled. "I remember that. Anyway, I spent nineteen years in the Underworld until Charon tried to throw me in the Styx. Hades then brought me up to Olympus. I was thirty-one. Does anyone recall the age that Percy Jackson said all demigods must be claimed by?" She glanced around, but her eyes lingered on Jack.

"Thirteen," Jack said proudly.

"Thirteen. Right. Well, Jack, Adrianna and Katy were fourteen at the time of their claiming – no, technically Adrianna never got claimed – and that's awful in your eyes, isn't it?" She didn't wait for his answer. "I was thirty-one. 'Oh, hey, look, that's my daughter!'" She shot a glare at Apollo, who waved cheerfully. He stopped when Bunny scowled. "It really hurt, kind of, to be unclaimed for so long. People used to tease me that maybe I wasn't a demigod, and this was all just a trick." She laughed once, hard, without humor. "Nico and Annabeth always told me being born without ADHD or dyslexia was a blessing. I didn't fight in the second Titan War; did any of you know that? You know why? Because I'm not a good fighter. Never have been."

Persephone rubbed her hands together eagerly. "Excellent," she murmured.

"And I took the Ancient Greek class twice as often as any demigod, because my brain wasn't wired for it. I was the camp freak, I guess," Bunny continued softly, ignoring the goddess. "ADHD and dyslexia are _common _among demigods, not _always._" There was a long pause. Then, Bunny snapped out of it and grinned.

"And now, darlings, I will rant." Her eyes scanned each god and goddess, as if trying to determine which to lecture first.

"Okay, first up… oh, Demeter, your daughters tend to fall in love with idiots."

Gina blushed, and Demeter scowled.

Bunny ignored the goddess's peeved expression and her gaze flicked from Apollo to Aphrodite and back again. "Apollo, Aphrodite… really, you two are falling off the wagon. These two are fourteen, and they were just now claimed. Gina, how old were you when you got claimed?"

"Six," Gina replied.

"I was ten." Ker nodded. "Penelope and Nick were seven or eight, maybe nine."

Bunny smiled. "You see? And I was thirty-one, Apollo. Thirty-one." She shifted her face back towards Demeter. "And you, missy, your daughter stole twenty years of my life, and that right there is all I have to say on the subject."

Then she turned to Zeus and the biggest smirk to ever cross lips or grace a face (teehee, rhyming!) plastered itself onto her face.

"With all due respect, my lord, you're an imbecile."

Zeus looked stunned, and Bunny burst into manic laughter. "My gods, I have been waiting twenty years to say that to you!"

"Watch what you say to the gods, child," Zeus growled.

Suddenly all of Bunny's smugness and laughter evaporated and her face exploded in anger. "Or what?" she thundered. "_What _will you do? I'm already in hell!"

"You just got out of hell," Apollo corrected.

"And if you continue to speak to me that way, I'll put you right back in it," Zeus threatened. Bunny's anger slid from her face and a sad frown replaced it.

"Let's just get this show on the road," she muttered.

Ares grinned. "Yes, let's!"

Persephone smiled and flexed her wrists. Bellatrix did the same, but she looked worried.

"Pick your poison, P," Bunny called. She nudged me, though what that meant is beyond me.

Persephone understood instantly and nodded to Rose. Rose cringed and moved to the center of the room, where she stood, sword in hand, facing our little troop.

"I don't get it," Adrianna said.

"It's unfair for the two of them to fight because Persephone's a goddess," Gina explained. "So, we're doing a one-on-one death match." Then _she _nudged me. "Go ahead, Katy. Show 'er what you're made of."

"I object!" Maia protested. "It might trigger a heroic response from Jack if we send Gina out." Myrtle nodded vigorously.

"I wouldn't need his help!" Gina snapped.

"And why would I help her?" Jack retorted. "She's the enemy, isn't she? She wants to kill me, doesn't she?" His voice was angry and hard, but his words let on just a little teeny bit how desperate he was for one of us to contradict him.

And then, Gina turned to him, her green eyes huge with realization.

"He's acting, right?" Adrianna said under her breath. "He's lying."

Gina shook her head. Her breathing sounded abnormal and her face was pale.

"Oh, Gina…" Adrianna's face crumpled, and her voice was heavy with sympathy. "Oh, Gina, tell me you didn't… tell me you didn't forget, Gina."

Gina flinched. "It slipped my mind."

"What?" Bunny asked, her confidence falling to confusion.

"We had a master plan," Ker murmured. "A Plan B. It was Gina's responsibility to let Jack in on it, and-"

"And she forgot," Bunny finished, her face falling. "Well, let's hope that wasn't too important."

"It won't matter," Adrianna said hopefully.

"It better not." Gina gritted her teeth.

Taking a few deep breaths and quietly thanking the gods that Persephone hadn't sent Jack on me, I made my way up to Rose. I would be fine. She wouldn't kill me, she was on my side.

Rose immediately sprung into action, all the panic and worry gone from her face, replaced by a coldly calculating expression that made me a little bit less comfortable. I hate to admit it, but I didn't even have time to react before she was on top of me with her blade to my throat.

Nice, lengthy fight scene, huh?

I heard the sound of a hand meeting a forehead in back of me.

"I don't know where to go from this point, Kate," Rose whispered. "Bellatrix can't take Persephone by herself, and Gina won't lift a finger with Jack on the line. And no offense, but Ker's kind of a wimp. She's never been a fighter. And to be honest, I don't think anyone else over there has the skill and-slash-or the experience to help out."

Then she froze and I heard from behind her, "Yeah, you know what that is, flower. Get up. We're not doing this today."

My first thought was "GINA! GINA! YESSS!" but then I glanced over her shoulder and saw Jack standing very casually behind her with his sword tip at the back of her neck. The entire room was stunned silent, except for Gina, who let out a loud whoop and ran up to us. I find it notable that Persephone looked furious.

While I got up and dusted myself off, I heard Rose mutter, "Oh, finally!"

I looked at her curiously, and she pointed to Jack and Gina, who were kissing (I really wanted to say "sucking face" but "kissing" was more accurate), completely oblivious of the rest of us.

Adrianna and Aphrodite cheered. Myrtle and Maia hugged, bouncing up and down screaming, "We won! We won!" Aiko elbowed Anthony, who was digging around in his wallet. Even Bellatrix cracked a grin.

"Alright, spill it, kids. What was the bet?" Rose asked.

Anthony produced two ten dollar bills and handed one each to Maia and Myrtle. "We bet on who Jack would finally end up with – you or Gina."

Aiko groaned. "In retrospect, we've been hanging on a thread for awhile now."

"Do you think they're going to need oxygen anytime soon?" Bunny muttered, peering at the two (are they a couple now? Confusing) from behind Adrianna.

Adrianna scratched her head. "I dunno."

Bunny grinned deviously. "Should we throw them in the lake? That would bring back memories."

"What about me?" Persephone shrieked. She looked much less smug than before. "Bellatrix, get them!"

"Sorry, Persephone. You got Freddy killed and I'm not doing your dirty work anymore."

Bunny loaded her bow with an arrow. "We can make this a lot more humiliating for you, P. You can leave now or you can get your ass kicked and then leave. Your choice."

Persephone seemed to be weighing her options. Finally she nodded and said, "Nice working with you, Twitchy."

Bunny nodded once, coldly. "You too, P."

The goddess disappeared, and then the second round of cheering began.

**A/N: I think I can safely say this is the second to last chapter. All I have to do is wrap it up, give Jack and Gina another nauseatingly romantic scene, and then on to book two! It'll feature mostly the POV of Nick, the son of Zeus, I think. The only real question is if I add another POV in the middle or not. **

**I'M SORRY! Originally, Rose died. I made her Mary-Sue-ish in the beginning **_**because **_**I was going to kill her off, but then I decided against it and so I'm trying to tone down her Sue-ish tendencies. **

**While I was writing, I found this quote extremely entertaining: "She's also not twisted, ****in love with me****, or stupid." That's Jack talking about Gina to Rose, because she's been in love with him since she was, like… (trying to pull a number out of my butt, here) nine or ten. Jack's a little bit slower. **

**Hmm, now that I look at it, this chapter is a lot shorter than I thought it was. Ah well. Thanks for everyone who's read, you guys are amazing. **


	23. The Very Very Long Epilogue

**A/N: This is technically the epilogue. I think. I had most/all of the epilogue typed out last night, but then I decided to change it. So :)**

**I have my kitty on my lap! Say hi to Baby! (Weird thing is, I have two cats. One is eleven and the other is seven months. Guess which one Baby is? Here's a hint: the kitten doesn't like me enough to sit on my lap yet.)**

**Katy POV**

"Katy, a word?" My mother waved me over. The rest of the group was preparing to depart. Aphrodite nodded at Mr. D and they disappeared, except for Bunny, who smiled.

"There goes my ride home," I muttered.

"Oh, don't worry. Bunny's a fine driver, and there's a new car waiting for her outside."

I forced myself to smile. "That was nice of you."

"It was Apollo's idea." She pursed her lips. "Katy… do you miss your old life?"

I blushed. "Yeah… a little bit."

"You had friends before, didn't you?"

"I guess. I more just hung out with the crowd… to be honest, Adrianna was my closest friend, and I have to admit I had a crush on Jack back in September."

She laughed. "Sorry, my fault. I thought he was perfect for you before I picked up on Gina."

I made a face. I didn't like the idea of fake love – like my mom was the only reason anyone fell in love with anyone. I'd never be able to fall in love without feeling weird – like "maybe I don't _really _like him, and my mom's just interfering." You get what I mean?

"So you're the only reason they like each other?"

She laughed again. "No. Gina had really stepped in it before I even knew she existed. Jack needed a little bit of nudging, but not much. Just enough to get him away from Rose." She smiled. "I'm proud of Rose. She made the right decision, in the end."

I scowled. "Rose gets _everything. _She's so pretty, and nice, and funny, and-"

"Nice enough to slit a guy's throat, Katy? Believe me, Rose is a lot more than a pretty face. Ever since her father died, she's been very… complicated." She paused. "You don't think you're pretty, do you, Katy?"

"No. And yes, it bothers me." My face flushed again. I wasn't brave, or clever, or strong, and here I was wishing to be pretty. It finally occurred to me that I'd had to have a dude step in and save my ass, and I wished that I had been able to take on Rose by myself.

"Okay, well let me tell you what I told Myrtle. There are different kinds of beauty, Katy. Have you ever noticed how different Myrtle and Maia look? Myrtle looks like a fairy; Maia looks like a doll. And the Lucks, they look… I've always thought of them as like cats. By the way, take this – if it bothers you so much to have me meddling in your romantic life, wear it." She handed me a simple silver chain with a chunk of pink rock on the end. "It'll protect you from my meddling. Although I must say, Adrianna's brother Troy you might like… he's very nice…."

"That would be weird. He's related to my step-sister." I examined the necklace carefully before slowly fastening it around my neck. "Thank you. It's very pretty."

She scoffed. "That doesn't matter. There's no blood relation. And you're welcome." She paused, lost in thought. "It's funny – I have three children named after flowers."

"Only three?"

She giggled. "The name Anthony is commonly associated with the Greek word for flower."

I laughed with her, for once not feeling self-conscious that she was so much prettier than me.

xxx

"So," Bunny said cheerfully. "How do you like your mom?"

"She's okay." I stared out the window. Apollo had bought Bunny a smooth, luxury car with plenty of seats for "road trips" (aka: quests.)

"I knew you'd like her. By the way, what the hell are all you kids doing at camp in the beginning of December? When I was your age, this was a summer camp, unless you were a year-rounder, and there's no way all these kids are year-rounders. I'll be damned if Percy and Annabeth let their son stay at camp year-round."

I pursed my lips. "Gina told me Bunny – ah, Persephone – called all the campers back – she needed Rose and Ker, and it'd look weird if she only called two campers back to camp, you know?"

"I thought Rose's dad was dead. Aphrodite threw a huge temper tantrum over it about five years ago. He drowned, I think – that was a bad year for Poseidon's kids' love lives." She chuckled.

"She stays in Illinois with her aunt."

"Oh."

There was a long pause, before she said, "Well, I'm glad those two stayed together. It was pure torture watching them fall in love for four years before they finally _did _something about it."

"Rose's dad and Aphrodite?"

"No, stupid. Percy and Annabeth. Jack's parents." Then her eyes widened and she smacked the steering wheel, causing the car to honk and several other drivers to shoot us dirty looks.

"Percy and Annabeth were wrong," she said, grinning. "Percy was always thinking that he and Annabeth were the connection between Athena and Poseidon – but he was wrong. _Jack _is."

"I think he already knows that," I replied, smiling to myself. "Gina tells him that every other day, but he's loving the sympathy that his 'My grandmother hates me' and 'I'm a freak' routine gets him, so he denies it."

Bunny laughed. "He reminds me of Percy, a little. It's like he took Percy's personality and twisted it to fit his situation. No doubt he's spoiled because Gina's been doting on him for years."

There was another long silence. Then finally I spoke up and asked, "Hey, Bunny – Persephone said, on my first day at camp, that she could've sacrificed herself for some daughter of Hades… who was that?"

"Bianca di Angelo. She was the one thing Nico and I never really agreed on… well, besides Minos. He didn't remember his mom, so Bianca was all he really had, but then she joined the Hunters and then she died, so."

"Oh."

"I never liked her."

"I figured that out."

"She was selfish."

"Persephone said that." The stoplight turned red.

"She was proud. She was stupid. But hell, that girl was brave." Her eyes unfocused and she fell away into La La Dreamland. "In fact, she reminds me a bit of Rose… she did something wrong, but she tried to make up for it. She died because of that."

I didn't reply, mulling over what she'd just said. Then the light turned green and Bunny stomped on the gas.

**Adrianna POV**

"Are you going home too?" Devon asked me.

"What do you mean?"

"This is a summer camp. Unless you have no family to go home to or your family sucks, you usually go home for the rest of the year," she explained, smiling kindly.

"Yeah. My mom lives in the city. I can come and visit, though."

"Come for Christmas!" Hayley goaded.

"And bring your sister, for Troy's sake!" Matt hollered. Troy elbowed him.

I eyed Troy carefully. "How old are you again?"

"Fifteen as of last month."

"I'll think about it," I said, narrowing my eyes and pretending to scrutinize poor Troy. Cassandra/Andi laughed, and Devon smiled again.

"Who else is going home?" Devon switched the topic, opening the drawers to her dresser and packing away the contents neatly into a little suitcase.

"The usual," Daphne replied, her eyes fixed on the little television. "Penelope, Ker, Jack, the Cams and Fr-" she trailed off, and the happy, joke-y mood of the cabin was successfully ruined. We were silent, until there was a knock at the door.

"Troy gets it!" Daphne shrieked.

Trying to spare my brother any further humiliation, I ran to open the door. Katy was standing there, her fist raised to knock again.

"Hi Katy!" the cabin chorused.

Katy grinned. "Hi, Apollo cabin." She peeked over my shoulder at a silent Troy and waved. "Hiya, Troy."

"New necklace?" I asked, eyeing the rose quartz fastened around her neck.

"A-yup. Let's go, Lucy's waiting for us."

Devon grinned. "Bye Adrianna. Merry Christmas."

Katy looked startled. "Jeesh, what's the date?"

"The fifth," Devon replied, zipping up her suitcase.

Katy relaxed. "Bye Apollo cabin." I echoed her goodbyes, and followed her out to Half-Blood hill. My mom was hugging a meek, mousy woman with red hair and glasses. That wasn't even the weirdest thing. Bunny was hugging a pine tree.

"That sucks, Emma," Mom said, her voice tearful.

"You bet it sucks," Bunny said forcefully, her voice muffled by the tree bark. "You know what it sucks? It sucks ballocks. Straight-up ballock sucking going on here."

"Oh, gods," Katy muttered. "Ms. Masen, right?"

The timid woman pulled away from my mother. "Who are you? Lucy, you didn't tell me you had _two _daughters."

Katy smiled. "I'm Katy Pierce, her step-daughter." She gestured to me. "This is Adrianna, the only real Powers in the Powers household."

Ms. Masen chuckled. "Red hair. A girl after my own heart."

"What's the chance that we three would grow up and all have demigod children?" Mom giggled.

"Oh, about that," Bunny said, pulling away from the tree. "Forgot to tell you I'm a demigod myself. Too old to have kids by now. It's major suckitude."

"You can have kids at thirty-two, Bun-bun," Mom argued. "My ninth grade science teacher was thirty-six when she had her daughter."

At the mention of ninth grade, Bunny's face turned red in anger. "I still haven't passed ninth grade."

Ms. Masen laughed. "By the way, how's Nico?"

"You always were good at saying the wrong thing," Mom grumbled.

Bunny sighed. "Yeah, he's dead. Kinda sucks, doesn't it?"

Mom smiled. "Major suckitude, Bunny. Major suckitude." She fished her car keys from her pocket. "Emma, you need a ride?"

Ms. Masen nodded and gestured to the two girls trudging up the hill. "You still have your minivan, Lucy?"

"Well I certainly don't have enough money for a sports car."

At this point, the Masen twins joined us. The blond one, Camille, turned to Katy.

"Have you seen Jack yet?"

"No. He's probably in the strawberry fields sucking face with Gina," my sister answered, the corners of her lips playing up in a small smile.

Bunny snorted. "His parents will be here soon. Can you imagine having to explain that to Percy? 'Your son is late because he's sucking face with his best friend.'"

Camille smiled. "Well, Katy… when you get home, can you call him and tell him he can stay in the Poseidon cabin next year?" Camryn and Ms. Masen were shocked.

"Camille!" Cam protested.

Camille shook her head. "It wasn't his fault, Cammy."

"He and Sage kissed and made up, didn't they?" Camryn snapped back. "He can stay in the Athena cabin."

"He doesn't like it there regardless," Camille said softly. "You barely know him, Cam. He's our half-nephew but you barely know him. Freddy knew him. Freddy would've skinned us alive if he'd seen the way we kicked him out."

Katy nodded. "It was kind of mean."

"We both threatened to kill him," Camryn admitted quietly.

"Aw, isn't that touching," Jack said, grinning.

"You bastard, stop sneaking up on me!" Camille shrieked. Then her smile faded and she frowned. "We're sorry, Jacky."

He shrugged while Gina tried to suffocate Katy with a hug. "Ah, it's okay."

Gina pulled away from Katy and sniffled. I should've figured she would cry.

"Are you going home this summer, Gina?" Camille asked.

"Nope. I'll be here all year!" she grinned, then turned to Jack. "Peace out, midget, fishboy, Jacky, Chase, etc. Just peace out."

"Aw, he's not a midget," Bunny giggled. "He's just a little bit short."

"I swear, if you two make out in front of me I will puke all over you both," Camryn hissed. Gina laughed and hugged Jack.

"In fact, tone it down on the hugging, too," Camryn muttered.

Camille elbowed her sister and smiled at her mother. "Can we go now, Mom? I'm kind of tired. It's been a long couple of weeks."

Ms. Masen sighed and smoothed back her hair. "You bet it has, Camille. C'mon, let's just go."

Mom jingled her car keys and started down the hill. Katy hugged Jack and Gina, who waved goodbye. As we clambered into the car, I could hear Bunny screaming behind us.

"Sucks ballocks, Emma! Sucks ballocks!"

Mom twisted the key in the ignition and laughed. "Some things never change."

Ms. Masen gave her a weary smile. "Thank God."

**A/N: Okay, I hated that ending but I wanted to wrap it up. Originally, Camryn and Camille went on and on for a lot longer… and I'm sorry that I didn't include Emma Masen's sorrowful reaction to her son's death, but I really didn't have the time, energy, or will to put that in.**

**Yes, this "epilogue" was long. I'm sorry.**

**Thank you. You've all contributed so much to the continuation of this story and I owe you, big-time.**


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